


Sixteen Miles

by thewingedthing



Category: American Revolution RPF, Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Actually kinda canon, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Incoherent French ramblings, Near Death Experiences, Sickfic, Washington is a heartbroken papa, i think, mostly angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 07:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5530784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewingedthing/pseuds/thewingedthing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“…The frenchman fell ill with a high fever at Fishkill, New York, sixteen miles from the Continental Army camp. When it looked as if Lafayette might die, Washington was on such tenterhooks that he rode over every day to ‘inquire after his friend, but fearing to agitate him, he only conversed with the physician and returned home with tearful eyes and a heart oppressed with grief.’” </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>A more intimate  account of the illness that nearly took the Marquis de Lafayette's life, and the powerless man who fell to pieces watching.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Creeping Chill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ms 1776](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Ms+1776).



> This is a Turn Secret Santa Fic! So Merry Christmas Ms 1776, I do hope you enjoy it! I know you said you preferred something with Washington, and the raw emotions he showed in several episodes within Season 2 will always fascinate me, so I decided to try and write something with that incorporated. Enjoy!
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Come hang with me on tumblr, I'm georgewashingwoes :)_

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Heart thudding a heavy, slow rhythm in his chest, Lafayette closed his eyes and let the chill take him._
> 
> ****

Rain lashed in a frigid torrent against the downturned sweep of the man’s tricorn. His fingers, chilled to the bone through the expensive white material of his gloves, tightened briefly around reins long gone stiff in the chill that had beset Pennsylvania since his departure from Philadelphia. Gilbert spurred Victoire forward with a grimace, struggling to force legs nearly frozen to his saddle to do his bidding. His great white mount snorted grumpily beneath him, it’s breath ripping harshly through the cold November air past the young Frenchman’s bowed head like a spirit’s scream. Water and mud from the pounding hooves below sent a constant fresh spray across the rapidly browning of his boots and stockings, and from above the rain continued to pour. Caught in betwixt it all, Gilbert could safely say that this was true misery if he’d ever experienced it.

A bark of thunder overhead ricocheted against the great black clouds towering like Titans from mythology lessons hazy in memory, and involuntarily Gilbert flinched. Above, lightning crackled in a smattering of brilliant color across the bruised skyline, and in its flaring light Gilbert saw from the hilltop illuminated some leagues before him the sparsely lit town of Fishkill— or at least, he _hoped_ it was Fishkill. The storm was an inky belligerence, and the unfamiliarity of this section of the country did not put the possibility of being lost out of the Marquis’ mind. His frozen fingers managed to tighten somewhat around unbending, frozen reins, and with a great effort Gilbert spurred Victoire forward.

 _Faster, faster._ It was imperative that he reached town before the true chill set in— bone chilling and devious. He had seen it’s work firsthand, icy claws and only the whisper of a frigid wind to announce its coming. Yes, he had seen the true chill set in, had watched soldiers succumb to the cold, listen to its drowsily deceitful whispers of false comfort. Some soldiers would listen. They would close their eyes for it. Sleep for it. Die for it. As the rain whipped red welts across his cheeks and the wind howled in defiance, in Lafayette's heart there grew a dark dread which slunk hot on his heels. _It must not catch him._ The Major-General spared a hasty glance behind him, and the small effort earned his head the sluggish facade of a floating, spinning world. He shook his head in alarm, muttering a curse in French. It was closer that he’d thought.

It was a remarkable, really, that Gilbert managed to make it to the outskirts of town. Half and hour later, soaked to the bone and shaking so badly he’d nearly fallen from his horse twice, the terrain leveled from sloping downwards dangerously— Victoire had skidded and slipped more times than the Marquis cared and could remember— to a flat expanse. Thunder rumbled overhead and Victoire nickered nervously, hardly hearing the broken murmur of comfort that tumbled past Gilbert’s lips to form an alabaster cloud in the freezing air. His breath came in hitched gasps. The chill that pinned his body immobile had gone numb fifteen minutes ago, and now there was nothing. No feeling. Only a steadily growing warmness, a lulling, drugged call to _sleep_.

But Gilbert would not give in, not now. He was so close. So close to beating the chill, to escaping it’s winding clutches. Ahead the soft glow of candlelight through windowpanes fought its way through the gloom, and Lafayette’s heart leapt nearly to his throat in an excited sort of desperation. He was going to make it! As if in answer, a bone-shattering crack of lightening exploded in a dazzling burst of light so close that Gilbert smelt the singe of burning hair. The very ground groaned with the fracture of the blast. A hideous screaming filled the air around him, Victoire thrashing beneath him, undulating like waves of Neptune's finest tempest. Lafayette tried to cling on, he really, truly did, but suddenly he felt it reach for him— slip it’s long fingers around his torso, between his ribs— and in a single blink he floated through the air, landing in a dazed heap on a ground that for a moment felt as hard and cold as the fat droplets of rain that pelted him relentlessly. And then, suddenly, Gilbert sighed, lashes fluttering as he allowed himself to sink into the comfort of oblivion. He floated like that for what seemed like ages, drooping gaze watching the dark sky as the thunder rumbled on, breath freezing in his lungs before it misted faintly past lips bluer than the navy of his uniform. His limbs were heavy. A good kind of heavy, the kind that one felt after a falling into bed after a long day. Lafayette blinked once, twice, dragging his lids up and open with a great effort. Rainwater pooled in the hollow formed by his throat, and when he swallowed it trickled gentle, icy fingers down the sides of his neck. Nothing ached, not anymore. He couldn't remember when he’d stopped shivering. He was happy that he had, though… No, Gilbert was in no discomfort. If anything, he was beginning to get a little sleepy.

Heart thudding a heavy, slow rhythm in his chest, Lafayette closed his eyes and let the chill take him.

 

 

  
The scream that ripped through the still night air was nearly loud enough to blot out the shattering crash of the front door being slammed open. Shivering from head to foot in fright, it took a decided minute for Lily to creep out from her hiding place within the parlor’s excessively long curtains. A hastened clatter of several pairs of feet across the floorboards in the foyer mingled with unintelligible, muffled shouts nearly had her scurrying back into the shelter of the drapery— how often had she overheard her mother worrying over a possible British invasion, especially now that they had retreated from the city— when her father’s voice rang clearly through the darkened house.

“Lillian!”

The hint of desperation packed tightly into the French lilt of his accent had her nearly tripping over the piano chair she’d upended in her haste to hide, and Lily flitted to the door just in time to nearly be bowled over by several men. She spluttered backwards, gasping harshly, hands flying to her chest in her shock and confusion as her back bumped against the piano. Keen blue eyes swept over the chaotic scene before her. There were three in total, and her heart leapt a beat as she scanned them. Her father she recognized immediately, his pale windswept hair falling from its usually snug plait, eyes full of wild and worry. Jerald, one of their servants, stood close by, the driving rain having flattened his usually unruly curls. His dark young face was ashen in the dim candlelight, gaze bewildered. Carried between them was a man Lily had never seen before. Slender, with a uniform that bespoke both his military status and allegiance and a damp, expensive looking wig atop his head. He was unconscious, or nearly so, slumped weakly in her father's strong arms, and quite suddenly she was struck with the impression of a child. His head lolled and an arm dangled lifelessly to the floor, the sleeve of his coat dripping rainwater across the floor. Lily resisted the urge to shudder and let her gaze sweep over a kind face— a young face, her mind whispered. She started in shock at the realization.

“Papa who—?”  The boy’s eyes fluttered, roving into consciousness for a moment, and Lily caught a glimpse of dark hazel.

“— I’m not sure darling. An officer in the Continentals for sure.” Her father replied. His words were English, but stress and haste had bent the syllables into something decidedly more French, making it nearly impossible to understand. But Lily was well versed in deciphering her Father’s twisting tongue.

“Where did he come from?” She asked breathlessly, quickly yanking the overturned piano bench out of the way as the trio stumbled past. She eyed the officer— the _boy_. He was drenched, the icy rainwater pattering to the floor in rivets from his clothing. He blinked blearily, shivering so violently that Lily wagered she would have been able to glimpse his trembling from a hundred feet away.

“Don’t know.” Her father replied, helping Jerald to deposit the soldier as gently as possible onto the couch. “A riderless horse galloped past Jerald’s window— took us nearly a quarter of an hour to find the beast and another yet to find its rider.”

Lily winced internally, her heart sinking with pity just as her brow-line rose. Ten minutes in such a frosty deluge as this could easily spell death, and whoever this man was, he had spent thrice that, lying in the icy mud from the looks of it.

"What was that scream?"

"Horse." Jerald said, shooting her half a glance. "His horse is still out there in the storm. Loosin' it's mind, it is."

She swallowed and the thunder rumbled louder.

“Lillian,” her father’s voice had her snapping from her thoughts. Suddenly off balance, she took a step backwards, eyes coming to focus on her father kneeling beside the boy, hands flitting from his cheek to his forehead in much the same manner he’d done innumerable times for Lily when she’d caught cold. He grunted, the sound low and troubled. Not a good sign coming from such a blunt man.

“Lillian,” he echoed, and she responded with a soft _‘oui’_. “Fetch blankets, as many as you can find. He’s freezing.”

She nodded, ignoring the way the soldier’s breath was beginning to come in tattered rags past quivering bruised lips as she spun on her heel and scurried off into the dark arches and creaking aches of the house. _Blankets, blankets._ Before her mother had passed she’d liked to keep the house neat and organized. The lack of a woman’s touch had grown noticeably since her funeral, with all manner of things strewn about the place. Lily bit her lip as she shoved the memories roughly aside and wracked her brain, palm dancing along the banister as she climbed the stairs quickly.

In total she managed to find five blankets, hurrying from room to room, upending chests and throwing open closest in her desperate search. The severity of the situation was not lost on her. When she was fifteen, her brother Thomas had fallen into the frozen pond to the north of the mansion. It had been cold, the windchill swept down from Canada enough to freeze the water in the house and cause the horse’s shoes to break into brittle fragments, and by the time Tom had been brought inside and bundled up beside the fire he was more than half dead. He didn’t wake up for a week after that, Lily remembered. Nine years later and his frozen face still haunted her dreams from time to time.

The cloth rustled in her grip as she hurried from her brother’s room— having left to join Washington’s Army years ago, he would have little need of his quilt— hesitating for a moment at the stair’s landing before doubling back into her room and yanking the bedspread from her rickety fourposter. Downstairs she could hear the steady lilt of murmuring voices, punctuated by clinks and clunks of something being thrown and the striking of a match. Over the mountain of blankets Lily managed to navigate her way into the parlor on memory alone, setting her armfuls on one of the chairs and catching only a glimpse of Jerald blowing onto a growing flame in the hearth before her father’s stern voice jolted her.

“Thank you chère, you may go.”

Lily frowned, raising a questioning brow in her father’s direction, who was busy detangling the soldier’s jacket from his long arms. She placed her hands on her hips, silent glare branding into his back until the heat of it caused him to swivel around.

“Lillian, please lea—”

“I want to help, papa.”

Her father straightened, dropped his head to the floor, sighed, before tossing her the coat in his hands. She caught it with effort, hissing when a button strung her finger sharply as it snapped against it, the large material soaked and heavy.

“Hang that up, please.”

Red embers of rage breathed life in the pit of her stomach, and with a grunt Lily shucked the navy coat onto a chair before striding over to assist her father in pulling the boy’s shirt from his torso. The moment her fingers came to grasp the icy, soaked white of a sleeve her father cursed in French, pushing her back with an arm.

“I want to _help_!” She protested again, louder. Behind her, Jerald peeked over this shoulder with a small smirk. Lily could have sworn she’d seen his eyes roll.

“You have.” Her father countered, gesturing at the unconscious boy. “This is far too indecent for your eyes, chère. Please—”

“Have you forgotten Thomas?” Lily countered, fists balled. “Forgotten how close he came to dying? That man’s already been in those clothes for an hour or longer. They need to come off as soon as possible and if I can help save a life, to hell with decency!”

Lily fidgeted at the light that danced in her father’s eyes. With every second he hesitated death slunk it’s finite embrace closer to the soldier. There was no time for deliberation. No time to summon what few servants they had from their beds— casting a quick glance at Jerald’s bowed form beside the fire, Lily made her decision within the span of a breath. Her skirts jostled and sung in hushed, sleepy sweeps as she strode to the couch and began to work the frigidly wet shirt off of the shivering boy with barely a second glance towards her father. Her heart yammered in her throat, threatening to beat its way into her lungs and suffocate her. Instead, she focused on the trembling of the boy below her, the broken gasps of his breathing. His lips were a pale blue, the color of frost dancing across a window pane, and Lily felt a fine layer of dread settle over her shoulders. He needed warmth immediately. She’d only succeeded in yanking his shirtsleeve from his arm when her father appeared beside her silently, large hands fumbling to pull the remainder of the fabric over the boys head. They did not speak as they worked, warm hands against bitingly cold pale skin, fingers nimbly gripping cloth as father and daughter mutely peeled the soldier’s soaked breeches from trembling flesh.

Standing back, Lily balled the icy fabric in her hands, eyes locked on the quivering thing lying prone upon the couch. He was quite tall, she realized, with a long and lithe body of wiry limbs and snow white skin that was kissed a violent crimson, stained red from the harshness of the cold and the battering rain. He gasped then, suddenly, an awful sound that siphoned through Lily’s heart. The noise was as sharp and quick as the shattering of glass, and when it happened again she couldn’t help but flinch. Shucking the clothing she held aside, Lily hurried forward to wrench a blanket from a chair.

“Papa, his shivering— _Il ne peut pas respirer_ —!”

Something between a ragged gasp and a sob ripped through the air, punctuating Lily’s panicked words with an alarmingly weak echo. The blanket that she spread over his lean chest and thin under-drawers was hurriedly accompanied by another, Lily’s father doubling back just as haphazardly for a third. A fourth, a _fifth_. Soon all that was visible of the boy-soldier was the white of his curls and the pitifully pained expression that marred his high cheeks and clenched jaw. Crouching down, Lily delicately worked the wig— still damp— from the boy’s head, shushing him when his breath hitched and he shuddered against the cold air rushing over a head full of copper curls plastered to his forehead.

“Papa, hurry and find me a towel, his hair is as soaked as his clothes!” She called over her shoulder, pausing only long enough to listen for the eventual clamor of her father’s shoes against the floorboards. She was partially surprised he had listened. Whether it was the fear or authority he’d heard in her voice, Lily was grateful.

A low moan nearly had her flinching away in shock, her palm pressing gently into the glacial pallor of the boy’s forehead. She forced herself to look down, past his shuddering and quaking, past the raw polar-blue of his parted lips, into a gaze of nebulous hazel. The recognition there was disquieting in it’s distance.

“He-,” Lily faltered. Swallowed. Took a breath. “Hello,” She whispered, and feeling silly over the lack of response— _the poor thing can barely breath, of course he’s not going to talk_ — she added gently, “you’re safe now.”

A blink of confusion and a particularly violent shudder had Lily shushing the small noise of misery that escaped lips pulled thin with the gritting of teeth. “Shh,” she whispered again, hand smoothing back red locks fringed with minuscule dewy drops from his forehead. “You’re safe. Try to relax, I know it’s hard but—”

“ _N_ -n-o- _om_ -mm?” The shaky word was strung out and uttered with a sharp tapering that bespoke of the effort to speak. _He spoke French._ Lily watched, stunned, as the soldier’s eyes flitted in wild, disoriented patterns that always ended with his gaze crossing her own. Finding her voice, she managed to recall her frayed wits enough to whisper “Lily” breathily. His shivering was still extremely pronounced, but even so there was a decided drop in its violence. Lily looked up briefly, glancing at Jerald as he stoked the growing fire, before returning her attention to the boy beside her.

“Et toi?” She murmured gently, free palm alternating rubbing quick circles up the sides of the blanket where his arms would be. The harsh, garbled tremor of strained breath and weak moans had the space between Lily’s brows pinched with worry. She considered removing her hand from his forehead— to fetch a towel since her father seemed to have disappeared, to warm him up herself— but when she slid the palm resting against his brow down the boy emitted a panicked noise, and so instead she cupped his cheek gently, heart aching. Behind her the roar of the fire was growing, she could feel its heat tickling the nape of her neck, dancing lightly up and down her spine.

“Quel est votre nom?” She whispered.

The boy blinked, lips parting though no sound escaped. It was another several minutes before the lilt of his accent carried his name to her ears, and Lily was so caught up in her efforts to warm him that she nearly missed the hissed, rasping pant of a single word.

“ _Lafayette_.”

 

 


	2. The Oncoming Dread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _All at once Ben was hit with a memory, a recollection buried deep in the snowbanks of war and sudden responsibility. That panicked disbelief lurking in the eyes, the way George shook like the world were ending— it was the same for every parent who came to his father, the Reverend. The look that bored its way into their features was always of the same nature: the grave illness of a loved one. The death of a child. Now gazing at the General, Ben heard the echoes of a distant murmur. A promise. Nothing good ever came of such a haunted gleam in the eyes. Tallmadge swallowed, his heart fluttering rapidly in his tight chest like a hummingbird fighting to escape. His father had never, to his knowledge, been wrong on the matter. But how he wished that he was._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, just a quick thanks for the comments and kudos :) Enjoy.
> 
> ****

“Sir?”

The parchment was smeared with red. Small beading droplets of oozing liquid sliding along it’s length, collecting into a bloody crimson glob that dripped from the letter’s edge to spatter wetly against a grimy black boot.

“ _Sir_.” The voice quavered in the air, as hesitant in its delivery as it was alarmed. A delicate wine-colored drizzle had begun to coat the dry ground, peppering the boot's surface in a coat of glowing cherry.

A hand suddenly lashed out, firmly grabbing at a trembling wrist, and George Washington glanced up from the stained letter in shock, as if he’d been snatched from a terrible nightmare. The General blinked once, twice, a shaking hand coming up to swipe over features plastered in a phantasm of dread. He looked down and away for a moment, eyes blown wide in the horror of realization— of reality. This was no dream. Across from him, a throat cleared nervously as someone shifted.

“You were-” Benjamin Tallmadge cleared his throat awkwardly again, unable to hide the concern that lurked in his gaze of nimble brilliance. “You were trembling sir, and your fingers…” Ben's voice faltered and he allowed the rest of his sentence to fade. The gaze Washington was casting him burned, but only just. It was as if a fog had moved in, shrouding him in a reverie of numbness that not even his infamous temper could penetrate. When George's gaze trailed slowly to the tight grip that held fast to him, Ben released the General’s wrist hastily.

"Apologies.” He muttered, letting his eyes trail searchingly over a face crumpled with some unidentifiable emotion. An alarmingly black mood had settled over his superior, its presence permeating the tent and the space between them like a void. Casting his gaze down, Ben blinked away his confusion, eyeing the letter held—-no, _clenched_ , so tightly the knuckles were turning white— in Washington’s bloody grip. The man's fingers dripped, tangled in crimson streams from where the paper had sliced deeply into them. In his mind’s eye Ben was caught in an endless cycle of tumult, hashing and rehashing the past only moments in the making.

He had just entered to deliver his report to Washington, hands clasped behind his back, Caleb waiting outside the tent in that patiently impatient way of his. Correspondences had been delivered that morning, deposited onto the table where the General broke his fast by one of his aides, no doubt. George had just been sitting down to eat when Ben was ushered in and all others ushered out— his reports were a matter of secrecy, of course— and he had not even gotten through his apologies over interrupting a meal when Washington had begun sifting through his letters absently.

It had been while glancing over the addressing of the third letter that the General had paled all at once. That was when his hands had started quaking and an awful shiver had fluttered through his body. He had slit his fingers in his haste to open the correspondence, and the frantic rustle of parchment and welling of blood as Washington skimmed the letter were replaced with the awful moaning that had made Ben's blood run cold and his words falter.

Thoughts reeling, Benjamin snapped himself back to the present, gaze flitting from the enigmatic letter upwards to Washington’s face. He flinched violently at what he saw there, hit with an expression Ben had never imagined would cross the General’s steely gaze and stone-set jaw: _terror_. Real, true, unabated fear, horrifyingly wild in its strength— it’s reality. Ben’s heart skipped a beat in his chest and for a moment he felt suspended, dangling in the dreaded limbo of the wicked unknown. His brilliant brain— honed on years of Yale studies (a gift from God really, at least he’d always thought so)— had already picked up the pieces and arranged them in a neat order. Whatever the contents of the letter, it appeared to have the power to move Washington, to break him. With a reaction so violently inverse to the normally composed Commander, whatever was written on that small piece of paper could, _quite possibly_ , decide the army’s fate. After all, what else could it really be?

This realization, of course, was why Ben did what he did, and without a moment’s hesitation. Boldly reaching forward, he took the letter from the General’s reddened fingers, its slippery surface making the parchment easy to pull from his grasp. Setting it aside, he pulled the napkin from the plate where Washington had been having his lunch, ignoring the unopened correspondences that fluttered to the floor as he proceeded to tightly wrap the thin paper slices that carved their way up Washington’s quivering fingers. The stains that immediately blotched through the cloth made his stomach twist violently— it felt as though it were going to cave in on itself. Casting a tentative glance upwards at his superior, Ben released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding before pulling over a nearby chair and practically easing George into it.

“You should sit, sir,” He’d murmured, and the lack of response— the full compliance to his words— had Ben more frightened in that moment than he could ever recall in his life. Quickly he pulled up another chair and sat, almost afraid to raise his gaze. The General’s eyes were a vacant grey, face whiter than the freshly fallen snow outside the tent, and the small tremors that rocked through his hands seemed to taunt Ben from his peripherals. Leaning forward slightly, Tallmadge snatched the corrupt letter and held it between them.

“Sir?” He began gently, and a flicker of something stirred in Washington’s eyes. All at once Ben was hit with a memory, a recollection buried deep in the snowbanks of war and sudden responsibility. That panicked disbelief lurking in the eyes, the way George shook like the world were ending— it was the same for every parent who came to his father, the Reverend. The look that bored its way into their features was always of the same nature: the grave illness of a loved one. The death of a child. Now gazing at the General, Ben heard the echoes of a distant murmur. A _promise_. Nothing good ever came of such a haunted gleam in the eyes. Tallmadge swallowed, his heart fluttering rapidly in his tight chest like a hummingbird fighting to escape. His father had never, to his knowledge, been wrong on the matter. But how he wished that he was.

Lowering his voice until it was a murmur, gentle but authoritative, Ben licked his lips and barked a soft “ _Washington_ ” into the petrified silence. The General flinched, blinking rapidly, gaze locking with the Major’s before a dreadful noise caught somewhere between a gasp and a sob broke past his lip’s defenses. Slumping in his chair, Washington brought a hand up to his face, leaning into the armrest weakly. Only half a minute passed before Ben pressed again. "What did the letter read, Your Excellency?” George shook his head slowly. His mouth dropped open and froze, as if he could not articulate the words needed to explain, and in that moment there was a faint rusting of heavy fabric as the tent flap was pushed back. Ben’s gaze shot to the entrance in time to see a familiarly bushy beard and ruddy face poke its way inside.

_Oh Christ, not now._

“ _Get out_.” Ben mouthed, jerking his head harshly to the side. “ _Brewster. Please._ **_Out_**.” Caleb rolled his eyes, usually cheerful grin collapsing into a mocking frown before he swiveled his head to the right and ducked back out of the tent in one fluid swoop of motion. Ben resisted the urge sigh, shaking his head slightly. The last thing he needed was his best friend distracting him— distracting _Washington_. Of whom it seemed was barley conscious of anything but what the contents of that letter had—

“ _Benjamin_.”

His name was a fragment, broken and uncertain on lips that uttered tenacious commands in the face of such overwhelming British odds. Yet there was something else there. A hushed kind of resolve, buried deep in the gravel quality of the General’s voice. When Ben looked up there was a light in the man’s eyes that matched the whispered intent in his tone, and barely had he opened his mouth then his Commander was speaking again, his words brisk and clipped, as if there was little time to spare.

“Find Billy, tell him to saddle my horse.” Washington stood, swaying slightly on his feet for a breath of a moment that had Ben wondering just what was going on inside the man’s head. George did not look at him, did not acknowledge his own ghostly pale face or lack of balance. He wouldn’t, but he didn’t have to. Ben had noticed the subtle brush of Washington’s fingers against the wood of the chair, had seen the way he had tried to right himself. He was still trembling— a frightened sort of shiver, like someone had just told him he had months to live. Ben frowned and the letter in his grasp crinkled as he flexed his knuckles, standing. He took a breath, holding the parchment up and moving imperceptibly to stand between Washington and the sun-stained ground that marked the tent’s exit.

The about-face of Washington’s sudden demeanor had caught him offguard. Again. Still, he persisted, as was his nature.

“Sir I can’t let you—”

“Considering the lack of authority you hold over me I would _say_ , Major Tallmadge, that it matters not if you can or cannot allow me to—" Washington broke off in a frenzied rush, appearing to realize the ire resonating from his anxious tone. Shifting uncharacteristically from one foot to another, he eyed the soldier before him for a moment before sighing and glancing down.

“Read the letter, Benjamin.” He murmured, reaching up to wipe at something glistening dangerously in his eye. “I will return tonight.”

“ _Return?_ ” Ben blanched, brows clashing in alarm. _Return from where?_ He took a step forward. “Are you leaving camp—?”

“The letter,” came the faint reply, as if it pained him to say it. Step-siding him briskly, Washington was gone from the tent in a flurry of cloak and fissured dread.

Ben watched him go for only a moment, trying and failing to ignore the chaotic turmoil that was caught in limbo somewhere between his heart and mind. In the end, his boots made no attempt to follow his Commander, and breaking his gaze from the forlorn looking tent flaps Ben wasted not another moment in smoothing the letter out on the table beside him and skimming its portentous contents, heart thudding a sickening beat, a tune which drowned his hearing in its rapid rhythm.

On the second line his brow puckered, on the fourth he bit his lip. By the end of the first paragraph Ben’s heart had, almost impossibly it seemed, picked up it’s pace and was hammering in his chest so hard he could feel it’s resounding tremors as they rocked his body in a ripple effect that carried from his hairline down to his toes.

Oh no. Oh no, _no_. This was worse, far worse than he had imagined— than he _could_ have imagined.

A metallic taste had trickled into his mouth, and finishing the letter he whipped around, blindly exiting the tent in three strides. The frigid air around him was choked with the sounds of soldiers’ chatter and the whinnies of horses. There was a buzzing in his ears that distanced him. A creeping horror, a trepidation that numbed his bones and carried his feet in a direction he knew not. Nor did he care. Washington had ordered the tacking of his horse, but something told Ben that he was already well on his way. He wouldn’t put it past the man to borrow another’s horse— a fresher one. A swifter one. Whichever would get him along the fastest.

Several strides away from the tent a familiar shoulder bumped into his own. Despite his bedimmed gaze staring straight ahead, Ben could see the half-cocked grin that slung itself across Caleb’s furry mouth.

“Not now Brewster,” he managed weakly.

Caleb grunted. “Me and a few of the boys saw Washington practically run outta the tent like he'd seen a ghost…”

Ben said nothing, didn’t even blink when Caleb muttered something about the blood that was oozing slowly from his bit lip. His thoughts were far away, split in two. Latched to one who rode with a haste to match the fiercest wind. Clamped down, bedridden ( _dying?_ ) with another.

Finally Caleb broke both silence and stride, sliding nimbly in front of Ben and gripping his shoulders, halting him in his tracks. The glimmer that haunted his eyes bespoke his worry. “You gonna tell me what happened in there Benny boy? Or am I gonna have to go find out—”

“—It’s Gilbert.” Ben blurted suddenly, the words no louder than a mumble.

Brewster pulled back a bit, the height of his confusion poised in the arch of his brow. “Who is—?”

“Lafayette,” Ben interjected exasperatedly. “It’s Lafayette— the Marquis de Lafayette, Caleb.” He added when the mask of confusion refused to lift from his friend’s face.

Brewster frowned, glancing from the way Ben was fidgeting like a mother hen to the letter still curled in white knuckles that gripped with a vice. “The rich French kid that the ol’ General practically adopted? Yeah, I know of him— seen him around a few times before he rode North… I liked his wig.” Caleb chuckled hollowly at his own failure of a joke, a pained edge framing his gaze at the look of barely concealed anguish on Ben’s face. There was a panic there that could not be hidden. He cleared his throat. “What happened to him, Ben?” Caleb paled, the unimaginable on the tip of his tongue. “Is he... he _can’t_ be… Tallboy, is the kid dea—?”

“No… not dead. Sick.” Ben nearly vomited the words, his stomach wrenched into harrowingly painful knots.

It was better news, but not by much. A man would have to be blind or absent not to take notice of the way the General had taken to the young Frenchman over the course of Lafayette's volunteered service in the war. Together they behaved as old friends— far too cordial for two who had only just met. There was a closeness between them that reminded Caleb Brewster very much of the bond between father and son.

“How sick?” He asked, and words that had nearly gotten stuck in his throat seemed to hang like rotting vines in the air between them. Tallmadge sighed, shook his head despairingly, met his gaze. In the familiarity of eyes he’d known since childhood Caleb saw the answer before it was even uttered.

“Very, Caleb. Very.”

His heart dropped all the same when the words hit the cold, crisp air. A plume of ghostly white dancing on the icy wind as all air seemed to expel his body in one gut wrenching exhalation. From somewhere in the camp a stallion screamed. Caleb ignored it. The horse had come in that morning with a steady limp. Favoring every leg save for his left hind, it had been decided that an effort would be made to save it, due to the alarmingly dwindling number of mounts that would be available after the harsh winter took it's taste of the army.

A gunshot cracked through the air, causing Ben to flinch violently. Caleb closed his eyes. So they had given up and shot the poor beast. A sudden shiver took flight through his bones, and Caleb cast a foreboding glance at Ben, catching his gaze. There was a low, thin rattle, carried like a spirit on the wind—the animal’s final death moan. It was an omen. A bad one.

A premonition of what was to come.


	3. Suffocation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _With a sinking heart Lily watched as the boy burned like the sun before her. The fever had set in— the true, merciless, ravaging heat which tormented the body and unscrewed the mind, tortured it to the brink of its sanity._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the comments and kudos guys :)
> 
> ****

Eventually, they put him in her brother’s bedroom.

Lily watches from the foot of the stair as her father carries the quivering bundle of gangly limbs and chattering teeth to the top of the landing and out of sight. The scene makes her nauseous, and she is forced to turn away. The ghost of her brother’s limp, frostbitten hand dangling from where his body had lain useless in his father’s arms stains the darkness that coats the insides of her eyelids, and with a whimper she grasps blindly for a wall she knows is there, solid and reassuring beneath the soft pads of her fingers. A constant— a solid thing for her to moor herself down amidst the rapids of her frothing emotions. A seventeen year old boy should not look like a child in his father’s arms, but that was exactly how her brother had appeared. Exactly how _Lafayette_ appeared, a listless, lifeless thing. As cold and distant as the bleak night sky from which he’d frozen beneath.

A jagged, tattered breath escaped her lips huskily, the shiver running up Lily’s spin having nothing to do with the draft that plagued the mansion. Tom had been unconscious for hours after he’d been rescued and rushed inside. She could still remember the way death had seemed to hover like a cloud around her brother’s prone form, clinging like dew drops to his lashes and lips. Her father had had to carry him upstairs as well, lost amidst blankets, an incoherent shivering mess clinging to life by a faint lip of consciousness and the deep-rooted resolve that he’d inherited from their mother.

Lily curled slender fingers into a fist, bringing dainty knuckles to rock mindlessly against the curve of her lips as the whites of her teeth pressed dimples into pale flesh. She knew not who this boy— _Lafayette_ — was, nor his rank in the Continentals. His mind and soul where a mystery, and if he had any will within him to live it was hidden to her. Those he called friend and those kin knitted to him by blood— nameless, faceless to her. Yet they breathed the same air as she, looked at the same sky and moon. And felt the same pain at the loss of a loved one.

A tear, tiny and wretched, slipped down the ivory curve of her cheek, pattering softly into the space between thumb and forefinger, and Lily turned abruptly, gaze climbing the stairs two at a time. Her hand twitched faintly, anticipating the curve of the polished banister as she ascended. Yet Lily made no effort to move, her legs as steadfast and rigid as the timeworn oaks that lined the mansion’s drive. She didn’t need to see what was happening— how her father struggled with the deadweight of the boy-soldier in his arms down the hall. How gently he laid Lafayette’s fragile, quivering frame in a bed that was nearly too small for his long legs. The contrast of the blue bedspread against the frost-kissed pallor of his porcelain skin. The way whimpers and moans and awful shudders of desperate breath were stolen from a body too weak to do much more than exist. Lily had witnessed it all before, watched firsthand as her brother had teetered helplessly on the precipice of life and death. She did not need to relive that agony. It was, after all, the same event, the same occurrence. History was repeating itself and like a dream she was stuck, ensnared within it’s timetable grasp. Wrapping an arm around herself, Lily took a small step backwards. Her father walked quietly, the soles of his shoes whispering like flowers being pressed into paper as his form graced the top the of stairs.

His skin was white like the morning mist that surrounded the mansion in the wet spring, and when Lily chanced a look into his eyes she saw the shimmer of memory contracted in green-grass irises. He had seen a ghost, she knew, for she had glimpsed it too. A yesteryear spirit in the shape of a son, a brother, who looked up at them through the hazel eyes of this fading, helpless boy. Lily’s heart cinched down on the emotion, the memory, the _ghost_ , threatening to overwhelm her, paralyze her, choke her in her uselessness. Hollowly she let her gaze float, brushing past her father’s, a mirror of helplessness. _Helpless_. They were both so _helpless_ to help Thomas, as destitute in their actions as he and Lafayette were impotent to do anything more than cling to the air in their lungs, clutching faintly at survival as they drowned in the chill that gripped them.

Looking back on this moment, huddled at the stair’s foot with bent shoulders and arms cramped and strained as she hugged herself tightly— kept herself together from where the ache and the pain burrowed deep, threatened to burst at her body’s seams— Lily imagined that the spirit of her mother had finally intervened. Or, perhaps, it was another— one connected to Lafayette, watching with a muted horror that could not be heard but sensed. _She_ perceived it, the refusal to crumble, a lung-full of fresh strength. Felt the gasp that delivered it home, inflating her lungs and saturating her heart. Her mother had always been a fighter and so, it seemed, was she. Lily felt the wave ripple through her body, a cantering, rebellious, brave thing. Her fingers twitched as it tingled to their tips, lashes dancing and pupils widening. Something— she must do _something_. Anything. Even if it meant taking up a vigil beside the bed of the boy who was leaning wearily against death’s door alone.

 _Alone_. The thought hit her like a cold slap to the face. Her brother had had their mother. Their father. His sister, their hands intertwined into the long hours of the night. She could not abandon this stranger, this foreign boy who could barely manage to breath his own name— _Lafayette_ — to grapple with death in the isolation of solitude. She could not leave him alone.

Lily started for the stairs.

The grip that landed on her forearm was familiar in its strength, the pads of her father’s fingers biting desperate crescents into the soft alabaster of her skin.

“Lillian, _ne pas._ ” His words were faint, a whisper, but even so Lily heard the whimper that quavered brokenly against each syllable.

“Papa,” She murmured, and turning around Lily watched as her father arced his thumb and forefinger beneath his eyes, saw the moisture that collected there. The pain was fresh where it dwelt between pupil and iris, stirred to boil by the sickeningly similar weight of Lafayette in his grasp.

“S’il vous plaît, petit.” He pressed, _begged_.

Lily shook her head.

“You looked at him and you saw Thomas.” She breathed, and almost instantly the hold on her arm was relinquished. Her father’s face was crumpled, worn with lines and wrinkles that mapped tales of life’s many miseries like the intersecting of tangled veins. “Don’t deny it,” Lily reached up, palm brushing softly against the furrowed lines of her father’s spasming cheek. She felt his jaw clenched beneath her touch and knew he was fighting back a sob. Her lips brushed the high rise of her father’s cheekbone. “I will sit with him, papa. I must.”

He turned abruptly, though his daughter knew it was to hide the wetness seeping from the corners of his eyes. They both managed five steps— unstable and shaky in their carriage— before Lily turned around from where she stood poised halfway up the stairwell.

“Papa, _le soldat_ … Lafayette… do you think he knew Thomas?”  
To say her father flinched was an understatement. The silence between them scraped into a sinewy stretch. Lily felt her heart sink at the sag in her father’s posture. Without meaning to she spoke again, blurting the curious words in a partial hope to distract her father from the resurfacing ache that bobbed heartless in their hearts.

“Qui est il? Have you heard of him?”

A moment of silence, a hushed pause, and then—

“Yes.” Her father said, and his voice was rough with emotion. Lily did not press further, instead turning and quietly slipping up the stairs as light and ethereal as a specter herself.

 

 

When Washington arrived at Brinkerhoff manor the rain had been pacified into a gentle drizzle that beat a steady rhythm against the window panes. Nestled snuggly in the rocking chair she’d dragged from her room, Lily hummed a soft tune as she swayed to and fro, eyes closed, letting the lull overtake her as it once did nearly two decades before in her mother’s arms. Beside her the boy lay silent but for the occasional whimper, buried beneath blankets that pinned his weak limbs immobile to the soft mattress. She has spent hours like this, Lily thinks, and the lessening dimness of the room proves her suspicions. Dawn in on the move.

A bang shakes her from her doze, and with a violent flinch Lily sputters fully awake. The banging comes again— one rapid boom after another— and for the second time that night she thinks it’s redcoats come to pillage and torch the mansion. Clutching at the slightness of her collarbone with a trembling hand Lily shifts, slinking soundless from the chair around the bed and to the door. Behind her Lafayette stirs weakly. Lily can practically hear the ache in his lungs as he struggles to breath, the shiver that runs through his exhalation reverberating through the too-still air like shuffle of moth wings.

The awful boom like thunder comes again, louder, and this time she is ready. Slipping to the top of the stair, Lily watches as Jerald swings the great oak door wide, a giant’s silhouette framed in the coming cockcrow light. The man hulks in the doorway for a mere moment before crossing the threshold in one purposeful stride, and even from where she crouches Lily sees the hesitancy that arrests his gait— the dazed sort of dread with which he slowly moves. His voice is low, deep and rich and— Lily supposes— _beautiful_ , when it’s not coated in a thick layer of creeping disquiet. Her father is suddenly there, rigid, shocked, ushering the man further into the hall. Lily swipes her gaze up and down, analyzing from where she hid at the landing’s edge, fingers tangled in the balustrade’s supports. His cloak— a deep black that shrouds the entirety of his gargantuan form— is quickly shed. It finds its way into Jerald’s waiting arms, revealing the uniform blue and gold tassel of a soldier of considerable rank— a perfect twin to Lafayette’s. Once upon a time Thomas had written her a letter explaining the hierarchy of officers in the Continental army. But she was tired, her memory fogged, and the note long since obliterated— ripped to pieces and thrown to a fire’s gaping maw in a fit of frenzied grief.

The man drew closer, voice hushed but commanding, and the despondent resonance with which he demands snaps the two men who dither behind him to attention in a manner that leaves Lily’s eyes as wide as the gilded aurelian buttons upon his heavy coat. Her father’s voice wavered when he spoke— sounds _awestruck_ — pointing to the stairs. Lily shifted nervously, watching as the man reaches it’s foot in two strides.

“Second door on the left, General.” Her father, strong as an ox and nearly just as large, sounded intimidated.

Lily froze, mouth falling open as she watched the stranger take the steps two at a time. Her mind was in knots— Spiraling, entwining. _Unbelieving_.

 _He couldn’t be._ Not— not _the_ General. Even without the detailed fervor of her brother’s overly enthusiastic— overly _descriptive_ — letters, she recognized the telltale features. The stern set of jaw. The hard eyes framed by tawny curls tinged with copper. The impossibly massive physique. Even without the knowledge of these details, the man’s imposing bearing betrayed his rank. Lily let out a shaky breath of wonder, and before she really realized it— indeed before she can even hope to so much as twitch a finger— George Washington had overtaken the stair-top and hastened past her so swiftly that his movement buffeted the curls which hung limp against her neck.

Recovering from her stunned state far quicker than her father, Lily scrambled to her feet and padded down the hall, gaze catching the lip of a rich blue coat as it disappeared with a frenzied snap into her brother’s bedroom— the noise that followed makes her ears bleed and her throat close up like someone had stopped it with a cork. It’s an awful, raw, breathless sound, and it reminds her far too much of the inhuman, rattling howls of biting wind through barren branches. Lily gasps, hand finding the wall heavily, barely able to support herself as her knees buckle. The noise is awful, yes. The lamenting of a poltergeist, dispirited, woebegone. And far too _familiar_ … Lily wouldn’t have believed such a sound could be pulled from a person— would have denied its possibility— if she hadn’t witnessed such a volatile pitch being wrenched from her father on a balmy summer night, nearly two years ago. It resounded like a wraith’s wail, like someone’s air being ripped from their aching lungs— they’re very life sucked clean from their bones. Lily heard a twin thud, felt the floor shudder beneath her feet, and hid her face behind the palms of her hands, remembering the way her father had collapsed when the mortal news had been delivered. He hadn’t gotten up for a very long time.

She forced herself to peek around the doorway as a muffled cry ripped through the air, clutching its frame so as not to reel back in stunned shock at the sight before her. On his knees the General was collapsed forward, slumped brokenly as he clutched at one of Lafayette’s pale, lifeless hands. Massive shoulders shook, shuddering as another miserable whimper was ripped wetly from a composure that had shattered like the smashing of fine china, numerous in its shards of anguished disbelief.

“ _No. Please God, no._ ” The words were nearly inaudible, but Lily heard them all the same. The tears came all the same. The tips of her fingers flitted to her mouth and perched upon quivering lips, sealing the cry that threatened to escape.

Washington clutched at the boy’s hand like it was his sole, beating life-line, his heading tilting slowly back and forth as it swam in its denial. His lips formed words of prayer that trembled, laden with tears. Suddenly, cruelly, Lafayette stirred, a weak cough choking him. He struggled, gasping feebly, labored breaths coming in grating wheezes. The General went rigid, a pitiful noise escaping his throat. He shushed the boy softly, gently, murmured his name in the lull between desperate rasps, and Lily was struck with a phantom daydream of her mother doing the same for her, an age-old memory.

She stayed long enough to watch the finality of Washington’s repose splinter. Pressing his forehead into the patchwork of quilt and mattress, the first true wretched sob cleaved through the dust and draft like a bayonet through soft flesh. Lily covered her ears and fled to the sanctuary of the fire-lit parlor, and in the darkness two souls dangled over death’s endless cradle.

 

 

That was the only time Lily heard the General cry. Through nearly a week of the boy’s unconsciousness he would appear out of the gloomy obscurity of dusk, wordless and stoic. She always made sure to be out of the room when he came. After the first few evenings Lily stopped hovering outside the door— her father would call it eavesdropping, if he knew what she were up to, but Lily saw it in a different, more vigilant light. There was never a sound within the room save for Lafayette’s fragile whimpers, moans ensured deep in delirium. Sometimes the boy would awaken to hallucinations, lost in a world of feverish nightmares that bore no light and no salvation. He would gasp flimsily, struggling to do more than tremble and seize, palpitating weakly in the burn. Draining what little strength he had as he wept. Yet George remained rigid, unflappable in his poise. Not a tear shed nor a word uttered. The man simply sat, sometimes gripping at the younger soldier’s limp hand, squeezing it so tightly he trembled. And always his distant gaze would be trained on sharp, elegant features— _European_ edifices, hailing from a world an ocean away— ensnared in a comatose gossamer.

Not even when the doctor was summoned— a Mr. John Cochran, as he hastily introduced himself with a rigorous shake of the hand— was Washington’s stonily blank demeanor fluctuated. This time Lily had been on the opposite side of the wall, straining her ears to listen to the hushed whispers outside the door as she rubbed soothing circles over the ridges of Lafayette’s knuckles and the back of his warming hand. She could hear the tone of the doctor as it reverberated through the wall, the downward lilt of his words. He seemed anxious, she thought, perturbed by the exhaustively disheartening knowledge that haunted both her and Washington alike:

“This fever— George you have to understand, it’s relentless in its severity. Its grip on him is tenacious… I will do everything in my power to save him but, pardon my austerity, refrain from allowing hope to veil your practicality. I cannot, in good faith, hide the fact that if Monsieur Lafayette survives, it will be a miracle in God’s eyes.” 

The General had departed swiftly afterwards— no one had heard him go, and Lily supposed that was for the best. Sometimes, in the depths of grief, one was better off alone.

 

 

A week and two days after he had been found, Lafayette broke through the coma-like asphyxia that had draped itself over him as thick and soupy as the fog that would sometimes roll across the fields in the early hours of the morning. Lily heard before she saw, waking lost in the sheets of her small bed to a streak of sunlight slanting across her dazzled eyes and a loud fracture of a moan that had her scrambling through a labyrinth of sheet and blanket dropping to the cold floor and scurry next door. The house was silent, and rushing into the adjoining room in a flurry that swished her nightdress around her knees Lily nearly choked around the gasp that lodged itself in her throat.

Lafayette writhed, tangled hopelessly in the mountain of blankets he’d been buried beneath. Copper curls lay matted against his forehead and as Lily drew closer she saw why. Sweat ran in rivulets across skin so white it was nearly translucent in it’s silvery hue, coating every visible inch of him in a clammy sheen. It stung his eyes and pooled in the hollow of his throat, soaking the bedsheets straight through. Lafayette let out a panicked gasp, his vision focusing once, twice, before his eyes rolled shut.

“Hey, hey, hey. Shhh,” Lily soothed, darting forward and reaching for his jerking arms. When their skin connected she hissed, recoiling, clutching her reddened hand that burned like a flame’s embers. Lafayette groaned, eyes reeling, head thrashing weakly, and with a sinking heart Lily watched as the boy burned like the sun before her. The fever had set in— the _true_ , merciless, ravaging heat which tormented the body and unscrewed the mind, tortured it to the brink of its sanity. Dr. Cochran had said as much— was expecting it’s arrival. Lily glanced at the window, biting her lip so hard it beaded with blood. He came at dawn— the doctor always came at dawn. The first haze of grey morning light had yet to splay its fingers across the horizon, but it couldn’t be far off.

_Could it?_

“Je— Je brûle— It _hurts_ —” Lafayette panted, the words no more than an exhausted whisper.

 _No_. It couldn’t be, wasn’t allowed to be. Unable to watch him struggle any longer— to do _nothing_ — Lily pivoted on her heel, racing into the hall and down the stairs, weaving from room to room as her nightdress billowed behind, a small white sail. The kitchen was dark and quite, and with a swiftness she had not known she possessed Lily swept through like a hurricane, gathering in her arms one of the pails of rainwater that had been collected from outside, a rag and a cup. She made it back upstairs, albeit panting and sweating slightly, in little over a minute’s time. Lafayette’s chest rose and fell heavily, every breath caught somewhere between a wheeze and a hiss. His head had fallen towards the door, and Lily swallowed hard at the dim chips of hazel that peered blearily up at her. Drawing closer, she felt the fever radiating from his skin in waves of nauseating heat.

Lily sat beside him gently— her movements light and gentle as the brush of a feather— placing bucket, cup and rag on the bedside table. She hesitated, hand hovering in gravity’s limbo for a moment before she moved to brush sticky dark curls back from Lafayette’s flushed forehead. He gave a breathless keen, vision unfocused, and she repeated the motion. Her mother had done this. Had sat beside her and Thomas’s bedside on long nights when it seemed like their illness’ would suffocate them. Distantly, Lily wondered if Lafayette’s mother had ever done the same.

“Ma… Ma tête…” Lafayette managed to choke out, the words brittle— they reminded her of a leaf caught in the winds of winter, decaying, crumbling. “it… _fait mal_ … _please?_ ” He sobbed, and Lily felt her heart break. He sounded like a child.

Reaching over, she dipped the cloth into the lukewarm water, squeezing free excess droplets before draping it delicately across the boy’s forehead. He yelped at the cool touch, a sound so soft and weak it yawned cavernously, a million miles away.

“ _Shhh_ ,” She whispered. “Je suis là pour toi… Je suis ici.”

And she stayed. Pulling the covers back, it took Lily ten painstaking minutes to work the loose white shirt from where it clung insistently to his sweat-slicked skin— her father’s, the garment had billowed loosely around Lafayette’s slender torso like a dress. When the tepid cloth touched his clammy skin Lafayette recoiled like he’d been scorched, gasping so harshly that the sound grated against the back of his throat. He cowered into the pillow, burying a weak groan that beget his misery.

“I know,” Lily murmured, scrubbing the cool liquid across the too-white porcelain of his chest. “Je sais. Shh, _je sais._ ”

The water that chilled his smoldering flesh was fleeting. It beaded and evaporated against skin that scalded and boiled, dissipating faster than Lily could replenish the rag. Her heart beat a steady rhythm of alarm that made breathing difficult as she dizzily worked past the ugly pattern of yellowish blue bruisings that marred and matted its way grotesquely up his side—- from falling off his horse, the doctor had said. The plunge itself must have been a biting, caustic thing; the hard ground so sharp and brisk; the kind of frigidness that is so raw it chars. Lafayette convulsed, his body twisting in a hysterical effort to escape Lily’s ministrations.

“St _o-_ a _ha- Stop—_ ”

She could not ignore the pleading groans, the pitiful noises of suffering that tore from lips mangled with the strain of sickly torture. But she needed to do this. Without the coolness of the the rag, the water that trickled wandering fingers over hot flesh, his body would disintegrate, incinerated as if the very sun scorched it dry.

“ _Arrête ça._ ” Lafayette pleaded weakly, his ruptured voice so pathetically shattered in its beseeching that Lily suddenly found it impossible to continue. Sitting back and throwing the rag into the bowl with a brutal force that betrayed her inner strife, she buried her head in her hands, vehemently refusing to acknowledge the harsh breathing that punched the air beside her. Lily took a break— for both her and Lafayette’s sakes.

An hour later there blossomed in the room a dim haze of grey morning light. It stretched against the walls and flowered past the gloomy shadows upon the bed. Her hands throbbed and her arms ached, and tiredly Lily readjusted the cloth that lay across Lafayette’s forehead, gaze trailing over his fluttering lashes. He’d quieted a quarter of an hour past, sinking into the mattress as if all the fight had gone out of him. He was exhausted, Lily knew. A small, black hole in her heart naggingly muttered her unspoken fear— _that he was dying, that the end was near_ — and she pushed it away roughly. She needed a distraction, something that would keep the nightmares at bay until Dr. Cochran arrived— she could only hope it wouldn’t be long now.

Lily shifted so that she sat on the bed beside Lafayette, running lithe, gracile fingers through his hair. Eventually, she closed her eyes. Let her tongue wander and her lips beat in wistful recollections.

“You remind me of him,” she whispered. The silence gaped, rebounding the remark back at her, and Lily let out an uneven breath. “He was my brother— his name was Thomas.” She nearly drowned on the name.

Beneath the tips of her fingers Lafayette stirred hazily, head dipping back deeper into the pillow. His eyelids quivered, lips parting slightly as if he could not get enough air. Lily suspected that he had finally lost himself in sleep. She sighed and leaned her head back, letting it rest against the wall. Her heart beat slow and heavy in her chest.

“He joined the Continentals two years ago. Under…” The letters, the _letters_. So many words, pages full of her brother’s scrawling script. Echoes of his voice, ever-eager and kind. “Um, General Nathanael Greene, I think,” A smile graced Lily’s lips, twisted and disfigured by the bittersweet memory. “He was so excited. So proud.”

The grief bubbled up, threatening to overwhelm her.

“ _You look like him._ ” Lily fought through a sob, peeking down at Lafayette, at a face so similar to one she’d grown up side by side with. He looked almost peaceful in his unconsciousness.

 _Almost_.

“You know,” a laugh escaped her, fleeting, light. Lily caught a tear, letting it dance onto her finger. “he would write to me every chance he got. About anything and everything— and I mean everything. Patrols, battles, even rations.” Lily snorted softly. “And General Washington. He could go on for ages about _‘His Excellency’_. I used to tease him that he was in love…”

Lafayette’s head drooped, forehead brushing the thin skirt fabric that covered her leg. She felt him sigh, a baby-breath puff of air that ghosted against her skin, leaving gooseflesh in its wake.

“And then one day his letters stopped coming.” Her voice broke, but Lily didn’t care. No one was here— no one was watching. “I waited for weeks. _Weeks_ …” She whispered. “We didn’t know for so long…” Lily wiped a stray tear from the corner of her eye.

“He died at Brandywine. Bullet straight to the heart, so there was no pain. At least, that’s what the letter read.” The admission dropped like a stone in the weightless, drafty room. Empty, a forlorn reality to be buried by the swell of time’s aged embrace. Lily let it hang there as tears dripped down her cheeks and the boy beside her shifted in a restless, feverish senselessness.

Her father hadn’t elaborated on Lafayette’s rank— his importance to the revolutionary cause— but that mattered little to her. He was someone’s son, someone’s husband perhaps, and there was a tremendously terrible chance that he would not make it back to them alive. Another soul lost, a life extinguished before it truly had a chance to flourish, to conquer the world. He wouldn’t even get to say goodbye to any of them. Just like Thomas.

_Just like Thomas._

As the morning’s sunlight drifted into the room Lily bent her head and prayed, a hand still tangled in Lafayette’s hair. She prayed for a miracle.

 

 

Four days later and it was storming. The fever had fully taken Lafayette, raging louder than the shriek of thunder and wind that howled outside the windows. It was during the daylight that the eye of the storm encompassed rendered him listless, quieting the desperate delirium that plagued him. But at night— oh, at night the rain lashed and the lightning splintered through the sky, and Lafayette would drown— in the heat that smothered him on all sides— _suffocating, always suffocating_ — in the water that refused to trickle down a throat red and raw from agonized cries.

Lily had taken over for Dr. Cochran that evening, messy hair plaited hastily as she drizzled water past Lafayette’s chapped lips. Outside the downpour droned on, relentless, and Lily let her gaze lose itself in the darkness past the water-spattered pane. Her father liked to draw the curtains whenever the clouds burst— to him a rainstorm was the heavens mourning. It had been raining when the news of Thomas’ death came. It had been down pouring when her mother breathed her last. _Her mother._ She had been the opposite of her husband, had sat with Lily on the porch and rocked her to sleep to the sound of the rain’s soft patter. To Lily, the rain was not a forlorn depression. It was comfort, cool and dewy like an airy kiss.

The bedroom door creaked abruptly behind her and she jumped, nearly knocking the bowl of water off the table. Spinning around, Lily stifled a gasp, paling slightly in the towering shadow of George Washington. His eyes were unreadable, a blustery grayish blue that bit at her coldly. She shuffled backwards, the backs of her knees bumping into the side of the bed, and watched as Washington’s gaze flitted frigidly between her and Lafayette. She’d never been in the room before when he visited. Never made her presence known. Lily felt her mouth fall open, eyes wandering anywhere but up as she searched for something— anything— to say, and when nothing came she ducked her head and made to scurry red-faced past the tall man. She had not known he was coming, she had not known, _she had not known—_

“Please, stay.”

His voice was so deep and so low that Lily nearly missed the request. Hesitating, she cast him a shy look before nervously tiptoeing back to her rocking chair, curling into it and wrapping her arms around her knees.

Washington remained standing, immobile. A statue.

Lafayette stirred then, beginning to mumble something brokenly, and without thinking she hushed him, slipping forward gracefully to smooth her palm over wild red locks. Washington’s boots clipped smartly against the wooden floorboards as he drew nearer and Lily’s heart nearly leapt out of her throat. With a gasp of mortification she recoiled, hand a blur as she jerked backwards. The sudden severity of the situation bore down upon her, a weighted shame crushing deep into her shoulders. She, of age and unmarried, alone in a room with a man. Touching a man in a most improper manner— too friendly, too bold. And the state of her _dress_ — Lily’s arms came up to cross over the chest of her nightgown, her cheeks fading from burgundy to a bloodless pallid. Her mother was no doubt rolling in her grave.

“Please forgive me,” she mumbled, half expecting to see a glimmer of disgust in that hardened, calculated woolpack stare that bore at her from across the bed… but when she looked up there was nothing but a faint softness in Washington’s eyes, and trailing his gaze she found that he looked only at Lafayette.

“Do you sit with him often?” He murmured.

Lily squirmed back into her chair uncomfortably, but there was something curious in the General’s tone that bid her tell the truth. “Yes, as often as I can. I… I don’t like to leave him alone.” The last word rolled from her tongue in a near soundless whisper.

The silence stretched on, arcing from seconds to minutes, and Lily flattened down the desperate urge to slip from the room, to escape as quickly as she could manage.

“Why?” The question was not accusatory, merely inquisitive, evinced by a faint pinch of the General’s temple.

Lily answered simply enough, “He and my brother are— _were_ … both soldiers… They would have been the same age.”

An unspoken understanding seemed to pass from the explanation to Washington, who closed his eyes slowly, tiredly, his sigh almost imperceptible.

Beside her, Lafayette’s breathing was beginning to quicken, churning into the awful gale it matured into whenever he was about to have a fever-fit. Lily shifted to the edge of her seat, gaze flitting anxiously from the distance in Washington’s eyes to the way Lafayette’s brow pinched and jaw clenched. She was already moving when his fingers twitched into weak fists and the first wild gasp tore past his lips. The imposing man beside her became nothing more than a glimmer in the back of her mind as she practically dove forward, pinning slim wrists to the mattress with all her weight just as the boy gave a pitifully anguished cry, bucking off the bed with what little strength he had.

_“What’s wrong?”_

Lily barely heard the alarm that suffocated Washington’s words, her focus on the way Lafayette’s skin seemed to scorch her own— burning, melting. He sobbed once, a loud grating sound that gouged at her heart savagely. He thrashed— _couldn’t escape_ — there was no liberation from the inferno which devoured his body and nibbled incessantly at his mind. Something would have to break— the fever or— Lily’s eyes shot to the wrecked look drenching George’s features— _Lafayette_.

“He’s delusional. Doctor Cochran can’t seem to get the fever to break, and every so often he will succumb to it’s—”

_“Papa?”_

Lafayette quaked, arms jerking feebly beneath the pressure of Lily’s hands as they fought to free themselves. His body convulsed as a bone-jarring shudder swept through him, and suddenly he was writhing again. A low, desperate sound slipped from his throat to attack the stagnant air, freezing the bitter breath in George and Lily’s lungs as they watched his back twist off the bed, spine arching. The blistering heat that radiated from him was almost unbearable, Lily’s palms slippery with sweat where they clutched at Lafayette’s wrists.

“Papa _aide_ ,” the boy’s eyes rolled, lost in the frenzy and flush of fever. Lily bit her lip, felt the tears begin to gather and prick in the corners of her vision. Beside her, Washington was as still as the stone that marred his unreadable features.

“A-aidez-moi _s'il vous plaît_. Je ne peux pas— _Agh_.” Lafayette’s head fell back bonelessly and his back curved upwards again, lungs rattling. His gaze, drugged and dusky, twitched to Washington’s.

“Pa—,” an awful heaving wheeze— “ _Papa_ ,” Lafayette breathed, and there was a recognition in his eyes that could not be mistaken. “ _Je te pleure._ ”

A noise like a gunshot cracked through the air and snapping her head to the right Lily watched as Washington clutched at his chest, eyes blown wide as he struggled to breath through his grief.

“What’s he saying?” Washington croaked, and at the sound of his voice Lafayette gave a pitiful, fractured bleat, eyes roving blindly. George’s composure broke. “What’s he _saying?”_

Lily flinched back at the intensity of the raised voice— it boomed, shook the very walls, and she was frightened. He knew she spoke French, had adeptly picked up on her father’s French lilt over the endless days of visitation. Lily swallowed noisily, panicked, and for a moment she couldn’t help but cringe into her chair. But her nerves had always been saddled with a layer of steel, and recovering them, she swallowed. “I think you should sit with him.” Her words were steady, firm even, and for that Lily was proud.

Washington was livid, furious. Terrified.

“ _I think_ ,” he hissed dangerously, “that you better tell me what he is saying, _girl_.” The words were spat, and Lily skittered backwards as the massive man advanced on her. When her back hit a wall and there was nowhere else to run she forced her spine straight and her jaw to set in a hard line, defiant in the face of this man’s panicked rage.

“He’s calling for you— he _needs_ you.” Lily pushed herself up onto her toes, getting as close to Washington’s wild eyes and intimidatingly harsh grimace as she dared.

The air between them was electric, frozen in time as their eyes narrowed in a duel of challenge and wills. Haunting the edge of their vision, Lafayette was overwrought in his agony, having nearly curled himself off the mattress in a miscarried effort to escape it.

“I think you should sit with him,” Lily echoed steadily. From her proximity she saw firsthand the awful unmasking of Washington’s panic, the true, ghastly uncertainty that plagued the storm cloud-gray of he gaze. He was scared, it was bare on every minuscule facet of his features. Horribly, frightfully, horrendously scared. He didn’t know what to do.

For a moment Lily went numb, pinned in place by the stark realization that this man— so giant and imposing— the very _Commander_ of the Continental Army, was scared. So, _so_ scared— And then Lafayette was crying out again and Lily was pointing, her brow set in a stern line.

“ _Go_.” She demanded.

And go he did.

The resolve with which Washington crossed the room was a dazed sort of determination. Rocky and unstable. Clutching the back of her rocking chair, Lily watched as the man knelt, a dismantled look of ruin chipping at his features, and took Lafayette into his arms.

“Pa- _aa?”_ the boy panted, word wrenched from his lips into a sharp yelp as Washington pulled him from where he clung to the edge of the bed, head hanging over the side. In the General’s arms Lafayette shivered violently, a mess of sweat and soft sobs. He was hot in George’s grip— so hot, so God-awfully _burning_ — and the little noises of pain that beat from his mouth had the older man’s breath coming in tattered, choking mouthfuls.

“I- _I_ — Je t’— _Please_ ,” Lafayette begged. “Je t’implore. _Ç_ -ça fait vraiment mal.”

A fat tear slipped from the corner of his eye, making it an inch or so before Washington’s thumb swept it away. When George looked up at Lily, the helplessness entrenched within his mournful gaze was too much for her to bare.

“He’s asking for help,” her voice wavered dangerously, and bringing a slim hand up she swiped it over her eyes. “Says the fever is hurting him. Unbearably.”

Washington looked down at Lafayette, at the tear tracks that shone like slivers of moonlight where they shimmered down the cardinal-tinted sides of his temples to lose themselves in the tangle of even darker locks. The boy’s head rocked and lolled drunkenly, eyes rolling dangerously into the back of his head for a beat of a moment as he fought for breath. When he choked on a cough George’s arms tightened around his torso, rigid in their embrace as he brushed back the hair which clung to Lafayette’s forehead. A hand was suddenly on his, white-hot and trembling, fingers clutching like the world was ending. And it was. It was, _it was—_

“Faire disparaître la douleur. _T_ -take- take it _away_ papa. _Papa_ —” Lafayette shuddered and shook, the tears coming harder as the fever threatened to overwhelm his senses. Washington’s eyes were wet, and he did not bother to wipe them.

“I’m here,” he said, and the words were shattered and broken in their whimpered delivery.

Was this what it was like? The rigid, limb-numbing terror of being a parent— unspoken of, shunned and buried beneath layers of inconsequential distractions. The unthinkable. The living hell that lurked in the corner’s of a mother’s heart, a father’s mind. The inevitable question, hated, abhorred— _how does one go on living after their child has died?_ It was an abomination— a _sin_ — to even conceive a thought to life after the inconceivable was conceived.

Holding Lafayette— tall and gangly, with obnoxious energy replaced by sobs that wracked his weak frame, imploded his lungs, his enthusiasm devoured by agony— flush to his chest, Washington looked into eyes dimmed by the call of death and saw the unimaginable.

“ _No,_ ” he gasped, and the tears stained rivers into the wrinkles of his worn skin, a torrent unleashed like the breaking of a dam. Beneath him Lafayette was loosing his battle. Exhausted, he let his eyes slip shut, swallowing— choking— as tears leaked and smeared across skin tarnished by fever. Washington watched helplessly as the boy drifted, so close to the brink of unconsciousness, the lip of sanctuary. With a sigh that slipped from him like a surrender Lafayette went limp in George’s arms, fingers sliding from where they’d clung to his larger hand to fall motionless upon the bed.

A low moan ravaged the room.

“My son,” Washington murmured, rocking the boy in his arms. “ _My son._ ”

Across the bed Lily closed her eyes, knuckles white from where they clenched at the chair— her one and only anchor. No one had done this for Thomas— cradled him, comforted him as he approached the rim of death. There wouldn’t have been time, not in the heat of battle, but still—

At least someone was here. For him. For Lafayette.

At least he wasn’t alone through this abysmal fever.

At least he wouldn’t be alone to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few of the ebooks I read online stated that it took Lafayette over a month to fully recover ( _yikes_ ), and that for three weeks his life hung in the balance. Washington would apparently come almost every day and sit beside him, and even sent his own personal physician, Dr. Cochran, to attend to him. 
> 
> Also, I have been asked a few times if this fic is Washington/Lafayette. I wrote it with the intentions of a strictly familial relationship between the two in mind, but you as the reader are more than welcome to your own interpretation.


	4. Broken Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She gasped. There in the darkness, as plain as day, was Lafayette. Slumped weakly against her door, his breath came in heavy, panting gasps. His grip on the doorknob shifted— began to give way, and in his eyes there was a desperation that had Lily’s breath catching in her throat. He looked ready to faint._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you so much for the comments and kudos :) I am not a native French speaker, so I did my best with it. Enjoy :)
> 
> ****

“Are you certain this is necessary?”

The lancet leered in the glimmer of her candle, and peering over its small flame Lily watched as the doctor finished rolling back the damp white of the sleeve that clutched wetly to Lafayette’s pale skin. A sweat-slicked sheen clung guiltily to Lafayette’s visage in the guise of dewdrops, and from where she hid behind her candle Lily was able to catch the faint pitch of Cochran’s brow. She swallowed nervously, the sound noisy to her own ears in the hush of the bedroom, and her heart beat an uneven staccato into her throat. The lancet rose from the bedside table with an audible tinkling chatter, grasped like an old friend in the palm of the doctor’s left hand. With a gasp that ripped from her as if she were the petite knife’s target Lily spun so that her back faced the bed, eyes squeezed so tightly shut that she missed the dangerous wobbling of her candle in its holder. 

A vexed sigh, heavy with disquiet, exhaled.

“Ms. Brinkerhoff—”

“ _Lily_.” She protested. 

Cochran’s mouth gaped for a moment, and if Lily were to have been facing his direction she would have fancied he looked more like a fish out of water than the one’s her and Thomas has once liked to catch out by the old pond. 

“Ms. _Lily_.” Cochran said uncertainly, and hearing the subtle tones of him shifting Lily knew she’d succeeded in making him uncomfortable. “I assure you, the procedure is both safe and remedially necessary— his condition has been in limbo for days. I will take the utmost care in administering the incisions.”

Lily shuddered. Feeling the doctor’s gaze flickering between her shoulder blades she turned, albeit reluctantly, to meet his gaze. She’d never seen a bloodletting done before, nor had she ever particularly wanted to, considering the mere sight of her own blood sent her spiraling on a dizzyingly inevitable drop into unconsciousness. But to witness such a deliberate drawing of crimson, to watch as the person she’d been looking after lost what they needed most…

Sensing her stalwart unease, Cochran followed Lily’s gaze where it swept across Lafayette’s pinched brow and reddened cheeks. The fever had not broken— nor had it risen or dipped. It was consistent in its ravishment of the boy, and would continue to be unless something was done about it. 

“And will it… will he feel it much?”

The knife shivered in his jittery grip and shocked, Cochran resisted the urge to relinquish his grasp on it. He had performed this procedure more times than he cared to remember, under the stress of waxing stares and waning time. But never before had so much as a pinky finger trembled on such an occasion. The desperation, the fear, intermingled with a protectiveness that seemed to encompass the entirety of the girl’s tiny figure— these influences rocked home on Cochran. Reminded him of the unlikelihood of the bloodletting’s success, in this instance at least. The poor prognosis of such a young soul’s survival, ravaged by fever as it was. He nearly turned away from Lily, away from eyes that seemed to beg for solace, that peered into the future and saw doom. That weeped for it. The dread pooling like tears in the pale blue of her irises, collecting for when she’d need them, for later. 

Finally Cochran looked away, cleared his throat gruffly, and raised the knife. “I cannot be certain. His consciousness has flitted between a denseness that alarms me to a thin skimming of the waking world’s surface.” Chances were the young Major-General would indeed feel something, despite his placid appearance and unaltered complexion of unconsciousness. A blackness smattered with lances of pain, immobile and inescapable, and secretly the doctor hoped for this. To have a conscious patient, writhing in pain with only a small, squeamish girl as an assistant (and her father and servant working the fields a mile away) was something Cochran would rather avoid. Especially with one so gangly as Lafayette. Lord only knew the outcome of such chaos.

Taking a firm grim on the slenderness of Lafayette’s forearm, Cochran aligned the lancet with the hot, soft skin along the inner arm, just below the crease of his elbow. Glancing up at the poor, cringing thing that quaked at the foot of the bed, the doctor attempted to smile kindly at her, but the action seemed to die on his lips just as quickly as it was implemented. Worry twisted his gut, and in an almost desperate act of kindness Cochran nodded towards the door. 

“Ms. Lily, would you be so kind as to fetch a fresh pail of water? I will most certainly need more than this.”

Her hesitation was plain, etched in the hard look of her stare and the way her slim fingers worried the pastel fabric of her skirt. Cochran held his breath and waited, the silence between them growing from a moment to two, and then some. Finally Lily budged, swiftly swiping up the pail which sat near empty beside the bed and hastening from the room with no more than three anxious backward glances. The withdrawal of her person from the room could not be labeled a flight— indeed barely a retreat at most, so reluctant were her movements. She didn’t want to leave him, Cochran understood, this girl who had taken up Lafayette’s care in his absence. But it was for the best that she did, at least for the time being. Distractions were something best avoided when one was wielding a blade of any sort. 

The lancet slid easily enough through flesh borne from the noble court of Versailles, blood bubbling like a symphony past stained metal to melt past creamy skin and dribble into the bowl which Cochran held cupped beneath. Lafayette barely moved, a slight catch in his breath— a twitch in his jaw— the only indication that he’d felt anything. Aligning the blade once more Cochran licked his lips and slipped it deftly from left to right, opening a valley of red that spilled and stained snow-white skin in a cherry claret that had Lafayette groaning weakly. 

Glancing over his shoulder Cochran paused only to listen for the telltale echo of footsteps on stairs before the knife was brushing effortlessly across skin hot and red with fever, wet with blood, splitting it as easily as one might take a breath. Lafayette’s face contorted, mouth falling open, lips working soundlessly as the pain congealed on him in the darkness behind closed lids. 

“Shh,” Cochran hushed him, but the moan of pain came no matter. Behind the doctor a low thud rocked against the floor, a bucket of water sloshing as a hurricane of flowing skirts and long hair announced Lily’s presence. She sat opposite him, and Cochran watched as unflinchingly her hand found Lafayette’s, fingers winding their way in-between his. She clutched tightly, as much for his sake as for her own, and catching the sweep of her wild stare Cochran found none of the queasy fear that had haunted it before. Now there was housed a hard-nosed determination, circling deep in the ice-blue of her irises. 

The silence took hold as he made the fourth cut, yet Cochran was conscious of Lily as she watched Lafayette’s blood spill, lethargic and taunting, down his arm and into the bowl. Aristocrat or peasant, conscious or lost in a sea of black, it didn’t really matter. They all bled the same. 

 

 

His blood was everywhere.

“Oi Finnegan! Either staunch that flow of yours or go hop in a ditch!”

A chorus of hardy laughter erupted around the fire, beside which Finnegan was standing with a rag that was more red than white, tongue pinched between his lips and muscles bulging in his effort to stop the bleeding.

“I reckon’ if ye ask nicely, Brewster here’ll cover ye with dirt, save some poor sod teh trouble after ye finally bleed out!” Someone from the crowd shouted, and this time Finnegan did laugh, the noise crescendoing as from the outskirts a man in a filthy uniform and cap clapped Caleb on the back. 

The whaler grinned ruddily before pushing himself off of the wagon he’d been leaning on. “You ask me boys,” he called to the men assembled in a ring around the fire, “I’d say Finnegan over here looks like he could use another drink.”

The rallying chorus of agreement which arose was soon pockmarked by raucous hoots as Caleb swaggered up beside Finnegan and practically ripped the mug from his good hand. 

Taking a swig, Caleb winked at the younger man. “Go on then lad, get in the ditchn’ I’ll pour it in after ya.”

The men exploded, a hooting and hollering that caused the fire to gutter and swell. Backs were thumped, ale sloshed as heads were thrown back to crow their owners’ hilarity. Doubled over in his own fit of laughter, Caleb hardly noticed the hush as it began to rise, an undulating ripple of jarring alarm and consternation that swept through the ranks of soldiers squatting and lounging fireside like an unstoppable gale. 

“Is that—?’

“Shut your—”

“Get out of the way!”

“ _Ow_!”  
Caleb whirled around amidst the hushed, panicked whispers, hand coming up to clap against the fluttering of his hat as his eyes roved for—

He spotted Billy, trailing forlornly like a kicked puppy, before the tall, stern visage of his commander swept into view. Caleb frowned, a hand coming up to scratch at his beard as he watched the procession file past, ignoring the way the men around him shone whitely in the firelight— skin pale and stark as the cold moon in their unease. If not for all the commotion, he wouldn’t have offered the General’s passing a second glance— to him, Washington was as unrecognizable as a warm bed and a good meal. Normally so solid and steady in his demeanor, with strides that devoured the ground with a dangerous air of confidence— _like one of them lobsterback man-o-war’s_ — Brewster was willing to wager that the Commander and Chief looked more like a dinghy drifting along brokenly than the dinghy itself. He allowed his eyes to follow the haggard procession for a heartbeat more before a flash of flaxen hair caught his gaze. 

Moving quickly, Caleb pushed past the men who stood in numb, immobile clusters, his heart leaping as his feet danced their way deftly towards—

“ _Oi_ , Tallboy.” He called out, and immediately Ben turned, the look on his face a glaring turmoil of anxious worry and persistent stress. The dark circles which purpled the skin beneath his best friend’s eyes had Brewster caught somewhere between biting his lip harshly and struggling not to shoot a poniard-tipped glare at Washington’s retreating back as it was lost behind the flaps of a tent. 

“Caleb,” Ben greeted hoarsely. 

He couldn’t suppress the frown that turned his features sour. “When’s the last time you got more than an hour of sleep, Ben?”

Without missing a beat Tallmadge smirked, “When’s the last time you had a bath, Brewster?”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Caleb blew out a breath of frustration, nostrils flaring. If the circumstances had been different (if Ben didn’t look as if he would drown from exhaustion) he wouldn’t have hesitated to threaten to dunk the little shite in the river himself… But ever since the doctor had returned from Fishkill bearing the ill-received news of the Marquis’ almost inevitable mortality, the General had taken up a nonstop circuit of midnight rights to Brinkerhoff. Such an endless cycle of high-strung emotions and long rides— not to mention the loss of the army’s General for extended periods of time— was leaving a considerably noticeable toll on the army staff… even down to the stablehands, who were almost too afraid to hand Washington his horse’s reins. Not that it mattered. He’d witnessed on several occasions the brutality with which the General would snatch the reins away— the reckless pace he would gallop off at.

“Bones thinks it will be sometime this week.” Ben whispered suddenly, the words blurted like poison from between lips pale and blue with chill. 

“ _No_.” Was all Caleb croaked, the words forced from him like a punch in the gut. His disbelief was like an illness, making his head swim, festering behind his eyes as he saw double. Licking his chapped, rough lips Caleb took a step forward, summoning up what few dregs of discretion he possessed. “How many know?” He muttered, tilting his head towards the campfire. 

Ben was silent for a minute, and as his eyes roved the camp Caleb’s trailed directly behind. 

“Ben. How many _know_?”

“Everyone.”

The word dropped like a stone, heavy into the pit of Caleb’s gut. He mouthed the air like a dying fish for a moment, conscious of the dumb look of pure shock that gaped at Ben; was reflected in his tired eyes. 

“How is that possibl—”

“C’mon Brewster, I know you’re quicker than that.” Ben’s words came in a tangled flurry, a rushed whisper that battered Caleb’s ear. “You’ve seen the way he acts, how he walks about as if the world were ending.”

“Washington—”

“—is a _wreck_. And the men see it. They observe his every move like hawks. Don’t think for a moment I haven’t noticed. ”

Caleb shut his eyes, knuckles rough where they rubbed harshly against the ache that was beginning to blossom within his temple. He had noticed, too. Had watched the rumors spread, whispers that fluttered outside tent-flaps, stolen glances at a weakened General facing a numbing chill that the frigid winter had no business in assisting. 

“The _‘soldier’s friend’_ , they’re calling him.” Caleb breathed, and the air misted white as he spoke. “Makin’ up names for him before he’s even… Some fear that Washington will be unfit for command after Lafayette’s death.”

“Some fear that now.” Tallmadge bit out, shrugging out of their close-knit stance and spinning on his heel towards the large tent.  “It will shatter him,” Ben called over his shoulder, and Caleb found himself wincing involuntarily at his friend’s unusual cynicism. 

“Ben, don’t think like that—”  
“And the army will shatter with him, Brewster, don’t play the fool.”

Caleb blew out a deep breath as he turned away, lifting his hat up to rake fingers through dark, unruly hair. He ignored the whispers that accompanied him like spirits back to his tent until they faded into the cool night air. 

“Shite!” The toe of his boot connected solidly with the lip of an unfortunate bottle that had rolled into his path, shattering across the dark swath of dirt and grass in a shivering mess of crystalline razors. Ripping aside the flaps of his tent, Caleb allowed his body to join his mind as he was swallowed by darkness.

 

 

The pitch black of the night masked the strangulated cry that echoed through the still air. Lily squirmed, fingers grasping desperately at sheets tangled in a hopeless heap around her waste. Her hair fanned the pillow beneath it like a sunbeam on a cloudless day, and in her dreams she saw her brother smiling at her. He was young, far younger than he’d been the last time she’d laid eyes on his tired face— but his eyes were the same, still the familiar emerald that would rival any blade of grass for miles. At least, that was what her mother had used to say. 

“Tom?” She breathed, and without realizing Lily stretched out a hand, blinking at it’s pearly white glimmer in the shroud of black that surrounded her and her brother. Thomas grinned then, eyes shining as he nodded, taking a step forward. His uniform rustled against the gun slung almost carelessly over a shoulder, and despite the grime that soaked him head to foot Lily found herself darting forward in a incandescent fit of joy, arms splayed wide. Where they meant to close around her brother’s torso— to wrap him up in a hug months overdue— Lily found only a cold swath of air. She stumbled, disoriented, tripping on the lip of her skirt. 

At that moment the cry came again, desperate and hissing, out of the darkness like the rattling moan of wind through the cracks in the windowpane. Lily scrambled backwards, legs and feet tangled on something long and constricting in the gloom.

“Thomas?” Her voice shook. The silence seemed to mock her, and fearing that the horrible noise would wheeze again— perhaps closer, perhaps over her shoulder— Lily scrambled back another pace. “Tom!” She shouted, and the fear in her voice was pitiful as it was palpable. Was this a nightmare? There came a clattering thud, a colossus specter in the dusk surrounding her shifting, and Lily screamed, the sound weak in her bone-shivering fear. 

“Ma—” The thing croaked. The sound was bone dry and awful.

In a fit of horrified desperation Lily threw her hands over her eyes with a high pitched whimper. _Thomas, Thomas, Tom._ She chanted, the rhythm violent and frenzied. _Tom help me, where did you go?_

The creature— for what else could be lurking in the darkness around her— made another noise, and suddenly there was a shuffling bang that had Lily yelping, her shouldering curling inwards, drooping as her head buried itself into the caps of her knees. 

“Ma— _Mademoiselle_ ,” came the call, nearly as faint as a breath of wind. Lily froze. 

“Tu parle français?” She called timidly, and for a dreadful moment the thought occurred to her that whatever rickety creature circled her was, in fact, her brother. Lifeless and rotting— a patchwork ghoul in the darkness. But then it was speaking again, and the voice was not the deep, gentle hum she remembered so well.

“Où— Où suis-je?” The question was fainter than a ghost’s murmur to her ears. “Aidez-moi s'il vous plaît…”

Lily lifted her head, round blue eyes sweeping the charcoal darkness which clouded around her. That voice— she _knew_ that voice. She was certain of it. She was certain…

“Say something else!” Her voice echoed. “Peux-tu m’entendre?”

But whoever it was never responded, and it was in the heavy gloom, thick as a blanket of wool, that Lily realized suddenly just who the voice belonged to. 

Her eyes flew open. 

A tangle of sheets woven messily around her legs was the first sight to greet her in the waking world. The second was far more disconcerting. The door to her bedroom— swung wide— groaned loudly in protest beneath the near deadweight of Lafayette, who clung desperately to it’s brass knob as if his life depended upon it. 

“Monsieur Lafayette?” Her voice wavered in the room’s murk. He was a ghost, he had to be. Just this morning she had watched him struggle in the throws of fever. Just this morning Dr. Cochran had warned her that the end was imminent— within the week, he’d said. The fever’s hold was too strong.

And yet… Lily didn’t know what action to take— if she should hasten from her bed to aid Lafayette or from the room to flee his specter— and so she merely sat, frozen dumb with shock. 

 _Light a candle._ Some semblance of wit whispered to her in the darkness. _Light a candle, for ghosts only cling to darkness and gloom._ Fumbling for the splay of matches on her bedside table, Lily managed to strike one to life, ignoring its subtle hiss and bob as she fed the flame on a wick. Shadows danced brokenly across the plain walls as she forced the candle into its holder and whirled, biting her lip in an effort to keep her eyes from squeezing shut— afraid of what she would, or would not, see. 

She gasped. There in the darkness, as plain as day, was Lafayette. Slumped weakly against her door, his breath came in heavy, panting gasps. His grip on the doorknob shifted— began to give way, and in his eyes there was a desperation that had Lily’s breath catching in her throat. He looked ready to faint. 

“Oh!” Thrusting the candle holder onto the table, she scrambled from her mess of sheets, bare feet hitting the cool floorboards for only a moment before they were flying across them in their haste. And not a moment too soon. 

“Mademoi…” The boy murmured, and suddenly his grip faltered. He would have fallen, collapsed heavily in a heap upon the floor, too weak to catch himself, too delirious— if not for Lily’s quickness. She caught him with a grunt, muscles screaming in protest as Lafayette’s deadweight pressed her back a step, his head falling to loll on her shoulder fragilely. 

“Oh mon Dieu,” Lily gasped, straining under the weight upon her. She heaved in a labored breath. For all her muscle she’d acquired helping her father in the fields, Lafayette was too wiry, too strong for her small stature to bear alone. For a moment she considered calling her father— Jerald. But they had had a bad time in the fields that day— the constant rains had washed away much of the soil, and with that went much of the crop. They had stayed out past sunset, working only with lantern light to salvage what that could. No, she could handle this— _would_ handle this. Lily took another step backwards, then another, slowly but steadily managing to lower the unconscious soldier to the ground. 

“ _Merde_ ,” she cursed, her movements a tireless whirlwind as she spun to rip both pillow and blanket from her bed. Slipping the pillow gently beneath Lafayette’s fiery curls, she spread the quilt hurriedly over his lanky frame, pausing only when her eyes caught the bandages which devoured his right arm. 

 _From the bleeding_ , she remembered, and couldn’t suppress the shudder that ripped through her. 

With hands that shook Lily tucked his arm beneath the quilt, fingers flitting to press firmly against the soft, papery skin of Lafayette’s throat, searching for telltale sign of a pulse. At first it evaded her, and fear gripped her heart like a stony vise. 

“No,” Lily murmured, disbelief causing her to press her fingertips deeper into the soft hollow beneath Lafayette’s jaw. “No, no.”

It was there, a faint, sluggish pitter-pat which rebounded against the pads of her fingers delicately. Lily sagged, the fear which left her a heady swirl of ice that saturated her limbs in a drowning weakness. Her lips trembled, a hotness climbing up her cheeks to water in her eyes.

“Merci Dieu,” she gasped. “Merci Dieu,”

From where Lafayette lay there came a sudden, soft moan— the sound of him coming to. Long lashes fluttered, revealing dark brown pools drenched in confusion beneath. 

“Qu'est-il arrivé?” He whispered, voice barely audible.

 _Coherent._ The word was foreign, something she never would have thought to associate with the young soldier. He was _coherent_. Biting her lip, Lily felt hot tears escape the corners of her eyes, slipping down her cheeks to drip soundlessly onto the quilt. “Oh mon Dieu,” Lily shook her head, voice cracking under the duress of her emotion. “Oh Dieu.” A sob cut through her as a trembling hand found its way to Lafayette’s brow tentatively, half expectant to feel the ravaging heat of fever still radiating from too-pale skin. When all she felt was a lukewarm coolness, Lily choked on her gasped sob, bringing her hand up to catch tears which fell like raindrops. 

“Thank God, thank _God_.” The fever had broken. It was gone. _Somehow_. Somehow he had overcome it. “Oh my God,” Lily whimpered. “Oh my God, oh my—”

“Qui es-tu?” Lafayette’s voice was no more than a breath. He had let his head slip to the left upon the pillow, towards her hunched form, gazing glassily through his lashes. “Pourquoi pleures-tu?”

So he didn’t remember her? Not even her voice? Lily smothered a soft sob with the back of her hand before wiping her eyes with her sleeve. However unsurprising, she felt slightly ridiculous at the disappointment which seeped form the realization. No matter. He was awake, and that was more enough. 

“You were sick,” she sniffled wetly, rubbing at the redness of her eyes. “ _Very_ sick.” 

Lafayette blinked sluggishly, “S.. Si- _eeck_?”

“Malade.” Lily whispered. 

“Ah… sieeck…” Lafayette’s eyes fluttered shut tiredly. 

Lily frowned. “You can’t fall asleep yet,” she murmured gently. “Not on the floor.” The cold _hard_ floor. _No, not after you just broke through your fever._ He was too weak. With some effort she managed to slid her hand beneath Lafayette’s back.

“Lafayette?”

“Mm, je suis Gilbert.” Came the faint reply. He didn’t open his eyes. 

Lily blinked away her shock, clearing her throat. “Alright, votre nom est Gilbert. Can you sit up for me? We are going to get you to your bed.” She bit her lip, unsure if he’d understood, and was nearly about to repeat the instructions in French when Gilbert’s eyelids trembled open. His gaze was distant albeit for a glimmer of understanding that shone therein. 

“D’accord,” came the faint reply.

Despite his newly acquired cognizance, it proved far more difficult than Lily would have originally guessed to even sit Gilbert up. Lily let out a long breath, sweat forming on her brow, her face flush from the effort. Beside her Lafayette was fading fast from the exertion, his eyes rolling upwards, head lolling. 

“Okay,” she panted to herself. “So perhaps we won’t get you to _your_ bed.”

She roused him again, and together they managed to turn Gilbert so than he leaned heavily against her bed, the floorboards hard upon his knees. Lily was sweating, and resisting the urge to open a window she rounded the bed to the side opposite Gilbert, taking his wrists in her small hands. 

“Gilbert, wake up.” Her tone left no room for argument, yet that didn’t mean her heart felt no pang of sympathy when he struggled to rouse himself. 

“I… Je ne… pense peux… que… je peux…” He breathed, panting against the mattress.

“Yes you can.” Lily insisted. “I have your wrists. You just need to pull yourself up. I’ll help you.” When he made no move to listen, Lily felt a tang of desperation sour her in doubt. 

“Lafayette!” She all but snapped, and if not for his near comatose state, the way in which Gilbert nearly flinched off the bedside would have been amusing. He blinked at her, something indescribable in his tired, searching eyes, before setting his teeth, muscles straining as he pulled himself forward against her grip on his wrists with an exhausted shout of pain. 

He collapsed then, nearly all of his lanky form miraculously making it onto Lily’s bed, exhaustion giving way to the blackness of unconsciousness. Breathing hard Lily wiped her brow, refusing the urge to sink to the ground and fall asleep right then and there. Instead, she lugged her pillow from the floor, gently placing it beneath Gilbert’s head. The blanket she shook out before spreading it over the comatose soldier, pausing only to tuck in a bandaged arm which dangled over the edge. Lily paused at the door long enough to catch the peaceful look on Gilbert’s face before taking her candle and moving down the hall to her brother’s old room. The sheets were in complete disarray, both pillow and blanket scattered on the floor from where Lafayette had fought his way out of the bed. _Had he fallen?_ She hoped not. 

Blood, dark and splattered, decorated the sheets intermittently, glaringly crimson against their crisp white. _From the bloodletting,_ she shivered. _From his thrashing_. Passing a hand over her exhausted eyes, Lily paused for only a moment to throw her hair up messily before she set to work stripping the bed.  

 

 

The next morning came swiftly, Lily having finally collapsed onto a couch in the drawing room sometime in the predawn hours. A knock at the front door sent her flying upwards, hand crossed over her immodest sleeping gown. Dr. Cochran. _Oh no._ She had to tell him about Gilbert. _But not like this!_

Racing up the staircase two at a time she blew past her father, refusing to pause long enough to hear his protests. 

“I must dress, papa! I am indecent!” 

“What of the boy? Last night I heard—”

“Tell the doctor the fever is gone!” Lily shouted, ignoring her father gruff exclamation of shock behind her. Swinging around the banister landing and down the hall, Lily burst into her room, flying to her wardrobe and grabbing the first thing she saw. Hurriedly she stumbled behind her screen— a coming of age gift, hand-painted with dozens of lilac and blush roses, from her mother. Dressing herself was never a simple task, nor a fast one, but over the years Lily had gotten it down to a science. Shedding her nightgown, she replaced it with her shift, shoes and petticoat quickly before working her stays on. Lastly she tied a light creme apron around her waist, smoothing it down twice with her hands before bustling out from behind the screen and immediately meeting the soft brown of Lafayette’s quizzical, sleepy gaze. 

“ _Jésus Christ_!” She screamed, nearly tripping backward into the screen. Lily all but melted into the floorboards, spinning around to hid her face, red hot with a mortification which nearly suffocated her. Her hands darted unsurely up to her where her hair fell from its bun down to her stays before she gave up, wrapping them around her torso self consciously. 

“I…” She choked out. Her mother was going to rise from the grave and kill her, she was probably already on her way. Gilbert’s silence was only making her predicament worse. Not a sound had come from the bed behind her, and nervously Lily’s gaze flitted about the room.

“S'il vous plaît, pardonnez-moi, I-I am _so_ sorry, Monsieur, I forgot you were in here and- and the doctor’s here and- and I—”

A low chuckle behind her had Lily’s immobile form unfreezing, and turning slowly she searched through the tangle of blanket and sheet until she found the small, tired grin that lit up the boy’s face. It was the first she’d ever seen him smile. It made him look younger, more boyish, if that  were possible, and suddenly Lily couldn’t help but wonder how close in age they really were.  

“Do you… alwhays change so freely eenfront of men?” His English was thick, a heavy accent that reminded Lily of her mother’s— distinct, foreign. 

Her blush flared. “I— no. _No_. Of course not. I’m no harlot…” It was an afterthought, a bit of raw humor she’d muttered more to herself— a joke of sorts. 

“Excusez-moi,” Lafayette said hurriedly, his attempt to sit up rather haphazard in its poorness. One glance at his face was enough for Lily to grasp his own panicked embarrassment. “Mademoiselle, Je ne— I made no off _en_ se—” He rambled. 

“ _Meant_.” Lily said softly.

“I— Pardon?” Lafayette faltered. 

“You said you _‘made’_ no offense, but the correct word is…” Lily paled, realizing how imprudent her helpfulness sounded, “… meant.” She looked up sharply, panic clear on her face. “Oh mon Dieu, that was rude of me, please—”

“Non, do not be! J'apprécie—” Gilbert’s words were strained, and suddenly Lily noticed how pale he was. How his arms, propping him up, shook from overexertion.

“Lay down,” she said, her humiliation dropping like a stone only to be replaced with the all too familiar weight of worry. Drawing closer, Lily stuck out a hesitant hand halting for only a moment before placing it on Gilbert’s shoulder. “You need to rest— you only broke free of that fever last night.” 

He blinked, seemed confused, but all Lily said was “come, let me help you lay back.” And lay back he did, with a heavy sigh that caused him to sag thinly into the mattress. His eyes slid shut.

“Fever?” Gilbert murmured, the word sounding alien on his lips. 

“Yes. You’ve had one for over two weeks.”

At this he seemed visibly shaken. Forcing his eyes open Lafayette attempted to struggle to his elbows again, only to be met with Lily’s firm hands on his shoulders. 

“Tah- _tahwho weeks_?” His pronunciation was as mangled as his strength, yet still Gilbert fought to sit up feebly. “What ‘appened? Where ees my Victoire? Et Commander Washington—?!”

“Shh, everything is fine.” Lily soothed. “The doctor is here, he is coming. He will explain everything. But please Gilbert, you must relax.”

As she’d suspected, Lafayette had but the dregs of his strength to draw upon, and offered little resistance when her hands gently pressed him down, collapsing back into the mattress with a grunt. A moment of silence lapsed where both could hear someone climbing the stairs heavily. 

“I… was theenking about pra…tendieeng. To sleep, je veux dire.” Lafayette mumbled quietly. His eyes were shut again, his words somewhat sluggish. 

Lily resisted the urge to roll her eyes, moving to sit in the rocking chair beside her bed. “Thought you’d spare me the mortification, did you?”

Gilbert smiled. “Sometheeng like that.”

“I guess I caught you then?” Lily smiled.

“Oui…” Gilbert’s voice was softer now, fainter. Sleepier. “et vous… you arre not a harr _lott_.”

“I should hope not.” Lily said quietly, and a breathy chuckle escaped Gilbert’s throat. 

There was a brief knock on her door before Dr. Cochran all but  burst in, eyes wide and ablaze with excitement. Clearly, her father had delivered the good news. He faltered for half a moment upon seeing the bed’s inhabitant before his eyes found Lily’s and he exploded. 

“This is a miracle if I ever saw one Ms. Brinkerhoff! When did it happen?! At what time?! What was his level of coherency? Did he have any semblance of a fever? Has he spoken at all? How long was he able to—”

“Shh…”

Lily had put a slender finger to her lips, eyes gently conveying what words she neglected to speak, drifting from where they’d caught Cochran’s wild gaze over to a sleeping Gilbert. 

“What?—” The doctor breathed. 

“He just fell asleep.” Lily whispered back. 

And so he had. His slender frame lost beneath the covers, all that was visible of Lafayette was a shock of red, curly hair poking out from beneath the quilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, yay it's not dead! Between studying abroad (let's be honest here, I did not study much) and getting sick it was kinda difficult to juggle this into the mix. But now that I'm officially home I can focus on finishing it :) It's stated that around this time in Lafayette's life, particularly when he conversed with Dr. Cochran, he spoke in broken English, of which I did my best to convey. Anywho, strap your seat-belts on people, because next chapter entails more Washington "my-son-is-dying" angst and Gilbert getting some unpleasant nightmares. Uh oh...


	5. Phantasmagoria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Lafayette’s door stood ajar. There was no General in sight. Slipping into the darkened room, Lily squinted through the shadows, glimpsing the rapid flutter of long lashes as Gilbert struggled to wake. On the first floor, the front door slammed shut, and Lily flinched, turning in the direction Washington had fled._   
>  _“What… ‘appened…?” Lafayette mumbled sleepily._   
>  _“Not a thing.”_   
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ty lovlies for all your feedback, y'all are wonderful.
> 
> ****

She'd expected him to come sooner. After all, Cochran had left with the utmost haste from the manor as soon as he was able, even choosing to borrow a fresh horse— Lily’s, an imposingly massive beast with a speckled grey hide— for the task of racing to the General’s encampment some eight miles away. Lily had waited, left alone in the large, creaking house with nothing but a comatose soldier and a spoonful of laudanum for company. Somewhere halfway through the night Lafayette had woken the household with the blind shouting of a man cornered in the vices of a particularly vicious nightmare that had turned over, upon waking, into the most relentlessly malevolent headache Lily had ever borne witness too. Her father, summoned from his exhausted sleep by the fresh shouts of pain, had been the one to think of the laudanum— tucked away in the near-forgotten drawer of her mother’s bedside table. Gilbert had taken the spoonful without argument— not that Lily believed he really could have, even if he’d wanted too. The fever that had ravished him had been replaced by a weakness akin to that of a newborn babe. Indeed, he’d only woken twice since he’d taken the drug, blinking blearily about himself  before succumbing to the incessant fatigue. Now, as the sun lapsed its way across the horizon, Lily quit her seat beside him, hand skimming the polished banister as she made her way quietly downstairs and into the kitchen with the remnants of her and Gilbert’s breakfast.

A boiled egg and and a square of buttered bread for her, and only half a piece for him— it was just another detail that had Lily on edge. It wasn’t nearly enough food, and yet it was all Gilbert could manage at the moment. She sighed, leaning against the kitchen table wearily as she rubbed at the fingers of her left hand. He couldn’t even find the strength to feed himself. The doctor hadn’t said much after he’d inspected Lafayette, merely eyed Lily for a moment before departing for camp— but eyes held an illuminating visage to the soul like no other, as her mother used to say, and Dr. Cochran’s were no exception. She’d seen the worry plain as day in the depths of his gaze, and now she too felt the familiar beginnings of it coil tighter within her stomach. Lily closed her eyes, bit her lip. While no doctor, she was far from dull. The fever had failed to take a life, and so weakness and erosion of the body and mind took its place. The irony of it all made Lily’s teeth grit, and with hunched shoulders she resisted the urge to fling the closest object across the room. He had fought so hard to conquer the fever— its pain ravaging him day and night— and now that it was cast out all Gilbert received for his stubborn resilience was the looming threat of starvation. Her jaw ached from how tightly it was clenched, hours of mute frustration bottled behind lips bit raw with worry. The fact of the matter was a blunt blow to her heart— Lafayette was still no further from death than before.

If anything, he was merely coherent of its tightening grip.

A roll of thunder echoed through the drafty hallways, causing Lily to jump nearly a foot in the air, a hand shooting up to cut off the yelp that flew from her throat. The thunder rumbled again, and after half a moment of standing in a dumb state of confusion she realized that someone was knocking at the door. Wincing abashedly, Lily hurried down the hall.

“I’ve got it!” She called, not expecting a response. Her father and most of the workers had sequestered themselves to the fields for nearly a week in counting, salvaging as much of the uprooted crops as they could. Lily didn’t bother to check who was on the opposite side of the door— after all, she’d been expecting him for some time. 

A tall man in regimental blue and white stood before her, dirty blond hair pulled back and secured with a slip of dark ribbon, the set of his gold-tasseled shoulders straight despite the awkwardness of his bearing, as if he knew he didn’t belong.

“Oh!” Lily gasped, shock rendering her mute for a moment. 

The man winced, casting an uncertain look about him before clearing his throat. “Good-morning Miss, my name is Major Benjamin Tall—”

“Where’s the General?” The question was past her lips in the open air before she could restrain it. Ben faltered, blinked, cocking his head to the side with a small frown.

“I-I’m sorry, that was rather coarse of me Major… what did you say your last name was?”

“I didn’t,” Ben said, not unkindly, and looking up Lily caught a friendly glimmer within his gaze. “Tallmadge. Benjamin Tallmadge, at your service Miss…?”

Lily’s heart squeezed painfully, and mortified she tried to ignore the heat that was no doubt reddening her cheeks. “Brinkerh—- _ah_ , Lily. Please, call me Lily.” She took a hasty step back. “I’m afraid I am the only one home at the moment,” she hinted, “but as you seem to have a matter of some importance concerning General Washington… overlooking propriety for a few moments will not do too much harm, wouldn't you say?”

The Major nodded slowly. “I assure you, Miss, I merely am here on official business.”

 _Just tell that to my father…_ Lily thought, sweeping a hand out as a gesture of entrance towards the soldier. 

“Please forgive my prior inattention, it’s not my aim to be boorish Major Tallmadge,” Lily all but babbled, listening for the tell-tale clack of the man’s boots as she paved the way into the parlor. “It’s just that… the past few weeks have been incredibly trying, and—”

“Miss Lily,” Ben cut in, causing her to spin around abruptly. “There is no need to explain, I did not come here to play on your nerves any more than necessary.”

At this Lily managed a small smile, smoothing her skirts as she sat in one of the pale, wing-backed chairs that spotted the room. Noticing Ben still standing, she gestured to the chair opposite her. “Please, sit Major.”

He did. 

Lily fought the urge to squirm, hiding her discomfort in the patterns her fingers traced into the chair’s arms. Something wasn’t right— not at all. Before the silence which pervaded between them became awkward, Lily set her face into a smile not entirely forced, canvassing the young face of the stranger.

“I must apologize, I would offer tea, but unfortunately I am the only one home and—”

“Please do not bother yourself Miss Lily, it’s no trouble.” Ben smiled gently. “I did not come here for tea.”

Lily nodded, the motion more to herself than anything. “Then if you wouldn’t mind me asking Major Tallmadge, why are you here? Where is the General? I trust that Dr. Cochran relayed the news of Monsieur Lafayette’s recovery swiftly yesterday?”  
His eyes were on her, studying her, and lifting her own gaze Lily met his firmly. He had moved up to the edge of his seat, perched upon it like a bird about to take flight, and silently Lily fought the urge to question if he always sat like a battle was only a breath away. 

“Ah,” Ben said, “Yes, well, we did receive the Doctor yesterday evening with the good news. I—” he twisted, pointing towards the door, “I’ve returned your horse, by the way. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve ridden him.”

“Not at all, was he good for you?” Lily couldn’t help but perk up a bit at the mention of Percival. 

“He was perfect. You’ve a fine animal there Miss…” He trailed off, and as the silence lapsed from a few seconds to a minute Lily couldn’t help but think that whatever it was that Ben Tallmadge was here to say, he was not in agreement with it. 

“Washington…” Ben sighed, clasping his hands in front of him, shoulders sagging slightly. “ _General_ Washington bade me come in his stead. He ordered me to.” Ben added upon watching Lily’s eyes narrow. 

“ _Ordered_? Where is he?” She bit her lip, an flood of the unmentionable threatening to spring forth. Had something grievous happened? Was an attack imminent? Had the commander himself taken ill? 

“There’s nothing to worry about—” Ben’s eyes trailed away from her own, past her, down to the floorboards. Up to the ceiling. The furrow between his brow was deep. “The Commander merely though it prudent to send another in his stead… As a precaution against upsetting the Marquis’ newly reclaimed health.”

For a moment all she could do was gap at the soldier before her, unable to comprehend his words. Lily was conscious of her lips working soundlessly in her bewilderment— of the way the bottle blue’s of Ben’s eyes seemed to be intermittently caught between concern and understanding. Washington was… _not_ coming? Despite all his worry— the distraught so apparent in the lines of his face. After such displays of _emotion_ towards Lafayette… He wasn’t coming? 

“I… I don’t…” Lily shook her head, disbelief harsh in the clip of her tone. “His health has already been exceedingly damaged…” Across from her Ben shifted in his seat. “Perhaps you can elaborate, Major Tallmadge, on why someone who so clearly cares for the man lying indisposed upstairs suddenly refuses to visit with him upon such a momentous defeat of such a damaging fever?” 

Ben opened his mouth to speak, leaning forward, but she beat him to his own words, voice raising with every blunt syllable she uttered. To hell with propriety. 

“Why is it that the General— who for the past fortnight visited not once a month, but once a _week_ — 

“Miss Lily—”

“—has suddenly decided that it is no longer a concern of his to- to—” Lily stood abruptly, frustration threatening to overwhelm her. She was indignant— _lividly_ so— for Gilbert. To be abandoned halfway through his fight, and by so prominent a figure in his life, so it seemed, made her blood boil. How dare Washington— what did he fear? 

Unbeknownst to her, Ben had risen, coming to stand a respectable distance from her distracted stalking. Lily was trying to restrain her anger, for the sake of her tattered decorum she _truly_ was. Yet the look on Ben’s face spoke volumes on her failed effort. Finally she whirled around, fighting fiercely to adopt some sort of composure. 

“I am under the full understanding that General Washington is extraordinarily engrossed in the military action sweeping this country, and rightly so… however given the circumstances of Monsieur Lafayette’s illness I had thought that the his survival of death’s brink would have enacted an indisputable visit from the Commander.” Lily blew out a long breath, a hand rubbing against the ache in her temple. 

Major Tallmadge was staring at her, head cocked in a way that— almost ridiculously— reminded Lily of a puppy’s inquisitiveness. His eyes were kind, she decided, if not a little curious, and in them she saw not judgement but a thoughtfulness suffused into the guarded azure of his gaze. There was something else hidden there, a flash of respect that had Lily’s cheeks heating briskly. 

“Washington,” Ben began, and Lily couldn’t help but notice that he had dropped the formal titles which usually surrounded the name, grounding the older man into normalcy. “Washington sent me here not because he no longer wishes to see the Marquis. On the contrary, his mind has been little elsewhere.” Ben sighed, “Truth be told, the General expressed to me his intimate fears on the matter more than once… He is acutely aware of the severity of Monsieur Lafayette’s illness and his miraculous recovery, and yet it is _that_ _awareness_ that keeps him at a distance.” Ben looked at her, and the trust in his eyes was plain. This was information that was not to be repeated, a private correspondence of the utmost security. 

“As I am sure you are by no aware, Monsieur Lafayette is as lively as any youth, and twice as excitable. It is Washington’s greatest fear that his presence will overexcite the Marquis— he does not wish to aggravate the healing process…”

“… So he simply choses to remove himself from the equation.” Lily nodded. To an extent she could understand— perhaps if it all had been turned on its nose, and Thomas was the one in Lafayette’s place, she would think the same as the General. The fear that he possessed any semblance of sway in the recovery of someone so clearly dear to him must have festered deep in the man’s heart, and suddenly Lily found herself thinking of him with a touch of sympathy. 

“I… suppose _you_ are here to see him, then?”

“My orders were to collect as much information on his condition as possible… but considering the General’s state of misery, I should think it imperative for me to, ah, see him, yes.”

Lily nodded. “It’s the second room on the left up the stairs, Major.”

“Will he be awake?”

“He’s been given a good dosage of laudanum for his headaches, so I suspect not.”

Ben nodded, taking several long strides before pausing in the yawning archway of the parlor. “I ask this question not for the General, but for my own knowledge.” He began, turning on his heel. “Is he… Is the Marquis still in danger of- of—”  
“Death?” Lily’s hands came to grasp at the bone of her elbows. “Well his fever has passed, so the severity of such a prospect has died down some…” 

Lily fidgeted uncomfortably, unsure how much she should tell the Major. In the end, she settled to omit nothing. “He barely sleeps— constantly wracked with nightmares or headaches. Or both. He’s too weak to eat or drink without assistance, and there’s something missing…”

A shadow had fallen across Ben’s face. “Missing?”

“A light.” Lily pointed a delicate finger at her eye. “A light in here.”

“Like he’s given up.” Came the soft murmur. Lily nodded. 

“He needs the General’s support.” She murmured. 

When the Major returned from Lafayette’s bedside his face was a shade whiter, and try as she might Lily couldn’t dismiss the haunted look which lingered in the pools of his unfocused gaze. She stopped him before he’d fully crossed the house’s threshold, slightly taken aback at how slowly he turned to face her— like a weight had been pressed firmly down upon his shoulders. 

“The next time he seeks to send another officer in his place, bid him come himself instead.” Her tone was firm, any hint of the desperate plea which blistered within her artfully masked by the carefully constructed impassiveness of her features. 

Ben merely nodded, bidding her a good night, before departing on the Doctor’s dusty black mare. From upstairs echoed the ragged cry, the first feeble sign of an onsetting nightmare. Hastily, she shut the door behind her. 

 

 

Night was always the worst. Not because of the darkness. She had outgrown that fear years ago, when Tom had used to sneak into her room— hide beneath her bed— and scare her. No, what Lily hated more than anything was the quietness that impregnated the house, deafening in its overwhelming hush. It was in the stillness that she could hear Gilbert— his moans, the way he thrashed about, eclipsed in the hysteria of night terrors. The agony of each relentless migraine.The way he sometimes _begged_ , for what she could not say, though it hurt her heart all the same. As she lay in the darkness Lily saw the haunted visage of the Major, his eyes— boring into her every time she closed her own. They spoke of unknown gravity, she’d thought, and the more she contemplated it, the more she feared. After half an hour of glaring at the whitewash of the ceiling Lily rose with a huff, running a hand through her messy hair. Another face haunted her as she tried to sleep, pervading her dreams, refusing her her rest.

Lily flinched suddenly, bolting from her bed as a shout like nothing she’d heard before ricocheted through the wall, rebounding twofold in the form of a low, desperate groan. She shivered, heart banging a painful beat against her ribcage, before crossing to her dresser and pulling her robe from within, wrapping it tightly around herself. 

She navigated the dark hallway by candlelight, half-certain she would meet some servant— her father— in the spectral gloom. But the house slept on, and with soft, careful steps she slipped down the corridor and into her brother’s old room with all the stealth of a shadow. For a breath the quiet overwhelmed her, the stagnant air threatening to suffocate. Lily took a step forward, raising her candle so that it flickered brightly in the juxtapose of the somber dusk of the room.

Out of the darkness there was a muted noise, as subtle as wind blowing through fields. “ _Go_ _away_.”  

The voice was hoarse, whispered, yet that did nothing to daunt the harshness of its delivery. Lily’s heart pitched violently, her breath arrested in palsied lungs. Eyes straining, she wanted desperately to call out into the black, the moonless night sending a chill up her spine that refused to be cast astray. Like a child in search of sanctuary she floundered in the sudden murk, eyes flicking to the drawn curtains in fazed appall. Still she held her tongue, strangulated grip slippery on the candlestick as her sweeping gaze wavered to a hunched mass upon the bed.

Lily swayed where she stood, refusing to let the fear that clawed at her breast overwhelm her. There was a noise— an awful choked sort of agitation. A smothered sound that echoed in the eternal muteness of the room and bid her to take a twisting step backwards. 

“M-monsieur Lafayette?” Her voice wobbled pitifully, manners stridently formal in her flustered, groggy terror. There was a beat of disquiet, a pulsating fertile hush. Then the noise was back, a festering, muffled thing. Lily swallowed noisily. 

“ _Please_ … Laisser s'il vous plaît.”

There was a groan as the shape upon the bed shifted, and in the softness of the candlelight Lily saw a halo of mussed red curls. 

Something within her clicked, the dread haunting her limbs abating. Lily’s nightgown rustled as she crossed to the bedside table, setting her candle down gently before turning to take in shivering thing curled before her. 

Lafayette's broad shoulders were laid bare, spin curving as he sat hunched, head seeking refuge in the tangle of gangly arms, forehead against his knees. There was a strangled sort of bleat, like someone drowning, and with a jolt that set her spine rigid Lily understood. It was Gilbert.

He was crying. 

“ _Oh_ …” The noise was fleeting. A sad, small thing that drooped from her throat. Lily wavered, unsure if she should stay— leave. Painfully aware of her intrusion on Lafayette’s intimate anguish. His private pain. She hovered at the side of the bed, watching as the soldier— _soldier_ — before her attempted to stifle erratic sniffles, shoulders shaking as he leaned forward to muffle his sobs against his arm, eyes shut tight. Long fingers clutched convulsively around a calf, his left, grip tight as if to ward off a chimera agony. He was shaking his head slowly, back and forth like a broken grandfather clock, and every delicate chiming cry was torment to Lily. 

Her foot slid back a pace. Towards the door. Away from this clinging, suffocating dysphoria.  

Just as she turned around, Lily glimpsed the tip of the bedspread where it grazed the floor. Lafayette’s bedspread. 

Thomas’ bedspread. 

She doubled back. 

The bed dipped with the tentativeness of her weight, Lily’s limbs trapped in a limbo of rigidness and familiarity, eyes keen on the nubilous visibility of Lafayette’s freckled arms, a fort to hid his face. 

“I wouldn’t leave Thomas alone. Not if he were… Not like this.” She whispered, and in the quiet her voice mingled with the unbroken catch of uneven breath and smothered sniffles. Lily took a breath, ignoring the awkwardness— the heinous inappropriateness of her situation— that threatened to overwhelm her. She licked her lips. Shifted. Her uncertainty was giving way as she recalled florescent memories of long nights spent crosslegged on her brothers bed, laughing, consoling, discussing all nature of things and beyond. His voice echoed in her head, and if she shut her eyes Lily swore when she reopened them he would be sitting there across from her, smattering of freckles and all. 

Whatever had happened to those times, eclipsed in the shroud of darkness, with only the stars that dangled outside the window and the blush of candlelight for company? When had she lost the ability to be a sister? 

How soon after Tom’s death had she forgotten what having a sibling was like?

Lily leaned forward, hesitancy vanished, and placed her hand— pale milk against alabaster— on a trembling arm.

“Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas?” She whispered, and then quieter still, “do you want to talk about it? Gilbert?”

He stilled— didn’t move, head still lost between the garrison of arms and knees. His fingers squeezed his calf vise-like, fluttering around the pale puckering of long sutured flesh.

“Your leg!” Lily was unable to contain her gasp of shock, the sound raking the back of her throat harshly. Gilbert flinched violently, head whipping up, eyes wide and glazed. He looked half wild, his gaze raking her chaotically.

 _He’s not looking at me._ Lily’s face was a mask, frozen in panic. _He’s not_ looking _at me._

 _Through_ _her_. That’s where the brown of Lafayette’s eyes trailed. Not at her, but _through_ her. Like she was a ghost. Like she wasn’t even there

But if he didn’t see her, if she _wasn’t_ there… then who was?

“Gil—”

“ _Je suis désolé._ ” 

She hadn’t known it was possible for someone so fair to become any paler, and yet Gilbert was nearly whiter than the sheet he feebly clutched, as though it were a barrier between Lily and he. A defense of some kind. 

“Sorry for what? Pourquoi êtes-vous désolé?” Lily pressed, watching helpless as a tear slid rapidly past terror-stricken features, dripping to stain the sheets salty. Gilbert was incessant in his distress, trembling, unable to tear his gaze from hers. His head shook back and forth. A slow, disbelieving flux. 

“ _Kil_ -ling.” The word came in two breathless waves as icy fingers began to slip their way up Lily’s spine. “J-je t'ai tué.”

She knew what this was, knew what was wrong. Thomas had written to her of it, had confined in her his terror of the men who roved and screamed, hopelessly ensnared in night terrors of past battles. Lost in endless repetitive dreams of blood soaked earth and the shouts of the dying. Forced to watch death which had been dealt by their own hands. They were cursed, haunted by the inescapable demons of sin, Tom had said. And soon he would be joining them. As the enemy drew near and the lines were drawn up, Thomas had written his last letter to her a few days before the Battle of Brandywine. 

Slowly Lily repositioned herself on the bed, wary of Gilbert’s gaze trained sharply on her movements, shifting so that she sat half a foot closer to him. She held up her hands and tried to ignore the way he cringed at the movement. 

“You’re awake, Gilbert.” Her voice was steady. “You were dreaming and now you’re awake. You are at Brinkerhoff Manor in Fishkill, New York. You’ve been sick for almost a month.” Not breaking eye contact she moved forward again, closer. “You were stuck in a night terror. Mon nom est Lily, je vis ici. Il n'y a pas de bataille. You are safe.” The curve of his leg beneath the blanket was close enough to touch. Nonchalantly Lily lifted the folds of her nightgown so that she could shuffle forward again. “Il est au milieu de la nuit, Gilbert. There isn’t a battle. My name is Lily and I live here.” She repeated. It was the only thing she could think to do. “You’ve been ill…” She was at his hip now, perched on the edge of the bed, blue eyes level with watery brown. “You’re _safe_.” Lily murmured. “Tu es en sécurité. You’re safe.”

His eyes were wide, and in them she saw fear laid bare. “My name is Lily.” What had happened? What had he seen— what had he done? “You’ve been sick.” Her hand was reaching for his, still gripped in a choke-hold around his calf. “You were having a night terror.” What did the soldier look like who wore her frame—stole it for their own countenance? “You’re not in a battle, Gilbert.” Did his eyes lull lifeless in their sockets— was he drenched in blood? Lily suppressed a shudder as her fingers closed around Gilbert’s, soft working against stiff. “Wake up. Wake up Gilbert. You’re safe. It’s not real. Tu es réveillé. It’s not real.”

A clammy palm greeted her own as rigid fingers creaked into motion, twining themselves between her smaller ones, and suddenly Lily was wrenched forward, collapsing into Lafayette’s heaving chest as long arms pulled her closer still. It wasn’t a hug, exactly. More a desperate grasp at something stable, as if Lily’s very presence was an anchored reality. He was still crying, she could hear his shuddering breathes choked against her ear, hot tears falling in a steady beat upon her shoulder, in her hair. His cheek slid against hers wetly. Lily could feel its embarrassed heat radiating, and with a pang of grief that wrenched at her gut her arms encircled him tightly. If a small part of her imagined that it was her brother who held her so steadfast, she would never admit to it. 

“I’m here,” was all she could manage.

“ _De_ -ad. Je les ai tués. Ils sont morts.” He whimpered. 

“Reste ici, Gilbert. In the present. Come to the now.”

Lafayette shook his head, the motion jostling Lily’s gently. His arms trembled as they held her. “I-I—”

“Hush now,”

“Le C-Commandant…” He choked out. “Où est-il? _Où est-il?_ Ees ’e _safe_?”

“Shh,” Lily whispered as her heart keened, repeating herself when Gilbert muttered something incoherently through his tears. She ran a gentle hand through his hair, soft voice echoing her quiet mantra. Listening as silence began to overcome his hushed cries, shrugging off her own exhaustion until it came instead for Gilbert. She felt the give in his arms around her just as his head lulled, sagging heavily against her own as sleep finally claimed him. 

Lily extracted herself from heavy limbs carefully, grunting as she pushed a pillow behind Gilbert’s head, more sure than uncertain that his utter exhaustion would keep him asleep through the process. Taking the candle that had all but extinguished itself Lily retreated to the vicinity of her own room, pausing once for a backward glance. 

Sleep evaded her until the dawn. 

 

 

A knock on the door startled her awake, and rubbing exhaustion from her eyes Lily dressed hurriedly, listening to muffled voices trail up from the foyer. One was her father’s, she’d recognize the lilt of his accent anywhere. But the other…

Racing from her room, Lily hauled herself to a stop at the banister’s edge, breast working double time in her excitement. “You came!” She cried, half without thinking, and at the stair’s foot George Washington twisted around, as surprised as Lily was at her outburst. Beside him, Monsieur Brinkerhoff reddened, shaking his head, eyes trained to the floor. 

“Your Excellency,” he began, “I must apologize sincerely for my daughter’s—”

“Nonsense.” Came the reply, a gravely, deep rumble, as if Washington were contemplating some profound thought or other as he eyed her. He mounted the stairs and Lily took a step back, absorbing the man’s countenance— despondent. A resigned, depressed sort of visage. One which was veiled thinly in a poor attempt at a mask of placidity. 

“—of Dr. Cochran?” Her father was saying. “Is he not due to arrive?”

Washington pivoted on the staircase’s landing, hulking frame towering over Lily’s petite one. “He is presently engaged in more… militaristic matters.” He assured, eyeing her father. “However I am sure Miss Brinkerhoff here will prove sufficient if need be.” He added, glancing at a red-faced Lily, who curtsied automatically, bowing her head. The men exchanged a nod and suddenly she was moving, trailing behind the army’s Commander as he moved down the corridor, unable to match his gargantuan stride with her own quick, pattering steps. 

“How is he?” Came the question, thrust over a shoulder hurriedly, almost impatient in its delivery. 

Lily blanched. _Weak. Can barely eat. Emaciated. Plagued with night terrors so vividly authentic he knows not where he is when he wakes._ Lost as of what to say, she nearly bumped into Washington. He looked expectantly— almost pleadingly— at her, one hand gripping the doorknob to Lafayette’s room so firmly Lily was afraid it would shatter. 

“I- He is—” _Not well._ “Doing better. Than before, that is. The absence of fever has returned him somewhat to his senses.”

“ _But_.”

“Uh—” Lily faltered. She didn’t miss the sag of shoulders, the way his eyes closed tiredly. With them shut he looked far more weary worn than he let on.

“I’d like you to enter the room first,” Washington murmured. “In the event that he is conscious I should like to be notified before making my presence known.” The General must have seen the bewildered look Lily tried so desperately to hide. Suddenly he was a torrent of barely suppressed emotion, barred behind the steel of his indignant glare. 

“I do not wish to weigh on the hardships that so vehemently fatigues him.” He all but spat, yet through his frustration Lily saw the stress fractures that made up his personage, splintering the man in every which way. “If in some way I were to be responsible for another slip in Laf— the Major-General’s health I—” Here Washington cut himself off abruptly, ducking his head away, though Lily conceived the sharp gleam of wetness in his eyes. 

Without another word she slipped in, disappearing for only a moment before pulling the door wider. “He’s asleep.” She murmured around it’s frame. “We gave him some laudanum for his headaches. They’ve… become increasingly frequent.”

Washington had frozen numbly in the doorway, gaze trained on the sleeping soldier. She knew why. Knew what he saw. The purple bruises beneath his eyes, the way sharp cheekbones poked dagger-like, gaunt features on a thin, tired frame. And his arms, still bandaged to the elbow from where the doctor’s knife had slipped beneath papery white skin. 

The General seemed to deflate all at once, shoulders bowing inward as he inched closer to the bed— a daunting task for one with such a colossal stride. He reached out a hand, so much larger than Lafayette’s— stronger, sturdier, not as delicate— and touched the bandages tentatively. Bowed his head. Closed his eyes. 

“Cochran spoke to me of his bleeding. He… said that it went well.”

Lily wrinkled her nose. She wasn’t sure what to say. Her mother had never approved of such methods, and nor did she. Though it _had_ worked, hadn’t it? Gilbert had woken up. But at what cost?

“Monsieur Lafayette barely noticed.” Lily replied, instantly regretting her words at the pain which dazzled across Washington’s features. He sat heavily in the beside chair, one hand still resting on Lafayette’s arm, the other burying itself in his own auburn hair. But not before swiping roughly over the storm-cloud grey of his eyes.

“I ask that you be candid with me Miss Brinkerhoff. Was his pain severe? Has it effected him negatively?’

Her breath caught in her throat and she fidgeted. “He remained quiet for half of the procedure. He was unconscious. But… When Dr. Cochran moved to his right arm. That is when… _I_ think… the pain began to be too much for him.” She didn’t want to continue, refused to relate to this man how loudly Lafayette had moaned through gritted teeth as the blade had flayed his skin repeatedly. And by the looks of Washington, saying such things would only serve to break him further. 

Lily watched as the General reached up to smooth Lafayette’s hair back from his forehead. The movement was gentle— a father’s caress, one her own had mirrored many a time. 

“He… he spoke of the army when he woke.” She added hesitantly. “Of its wellbeing. And of yours.” Washington flinched visibly, trembling. 

“A true patriot if ever I met one.” He murmured, thumb coming to stroke slowly at the sharp arch of Lafayette’s cheek. The gesture was so loving in its intimacy that Lily suddenly felt very much an intrusion. Curtsying quickly, she sidestepped out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind her before retiring to her own room where her stitching awaited. 

Half an hour later the clatter of a door being wretched open hastily and the pounding thunder of heavy booted feet thudding from hall to stair had Lily scrambling from her chair and into the corridor. Lafayette’s door stood ajar. There was no General in sight. Slipping into the darkened room, Lily squinted through the shadows, glimpsing the rapid flutter of long lashes as Gilbert struggled to wake. On the first floor, the front door slammed shut, and Lily flinched, turning in the direction Washington had fled. 

“What… ‘appened…?” Lafayette mumbled sleepily.

“Not a thing.”

 

 

The next night Lily heard Lafayette scream she was ready. It had not been as fierce, the hallucination, and sitting beside him she was able to coax him from it far quicker than before. When his eyes fluttered to hers with discernible coherence she relaxed, dislodging her hand from his and moving to grab the glass of water on the bedside table. 

“Can you sit up?” She asked softly, and Gilbert nodded, albeit somewhat unsurely. He did so with a wince and a grunt. When she handed him the glass he nearly dropped it, sloshing water across the blankets and dousing Lily’s sleeve completely. Face flush with humiliation, Gilbert was profuse in his apologies as Lily helped to stabilize the cup in his hands, refusing to meet her gaze.

“It’s fine, Gilbert.” Lily hummed, trying and failing to force the bemused smile from her lips. “A little water never killed anyone.”

“Ze ladies of Versailles would beg to differ.” He muttered, nearly dropping the cup again with a growl of frustration. Balancing the glass precariously in his grip, Gilbert frowned. “‘Ow am I to be a gene _raal_ when I cannot even lift a-a _verre_?” He pouted.  

Lily sighed lightly, seating herself beside him on the chair she’d dragged over. “The word you’re looking for is _‘glass’_.” Gilbert’s frown deepened. “And you aren’t supposed to be a general _now_. Vous devez récupérer premièrement, no? Recover first, fight redcoats later.” She tapped a finger against the glass in his lap, gently pushing it towards him. When all Lafayette did was stare at it she asked, “do you need me to help you?”

“ _Non_.”

It was her turn to frown. “Gilbert, soyez honnête avec moi s'il vous plaît. Do you?”

He was biting his lower lip fiercely. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the stubbornness of men, Lily inched her way to the edge of her seat and took hold of Gilbert’s wrist.

“You know, I have nightmares as well,” She murmured, waiting until his attention had jolted to her before beginning to guide the cup to his lips. “At least twice a week, maybe more. Depends on the season.” Lily chanced a glance upwards, meeting Gilbert's eyes. The cup was at his lips, and gently she tilted it forward for him. The first gulp he choked, eyes watering as they screwed shut. A deep, gasping breath of relief. The second time was easier, with Gilbert only taking meek, uncertain sips. 

“It’s always the same, too. The dream, I mean. And I always wake at the same time.” She took the cup from his slack grip when he had finished, setting it beside her. “No matter how I scream at him, no matter how fast I run— what I do. He still…”

“Qui est-ce?” Gilbert asked softly, head resting tiredly on the wall behind him. He stared at her from the corners of his gaze. “Qui avez-vous perdu?”

Lily quirked a brow. “How did you know that I…?”  
“The look een your eyes.” He replied simply. 

Lily hesitated, could feel the threatening prick of tears in the shallows of her eyes. Her mouth worked for a moment, silent, before— “Mon frère. Thomas.”

Lafayette shut his eyes, swallowed roughly. “I am sorry.”

“It happened a while ago,” Lily lied swiftly. “It’s alright.”

The silent was peaceful between them, with her lost in thought and Gilbert presumably resting. Suddenly he broke it, looking at Lily with a mournful smile. 

“I… nev _erre_ ‘ad any sibleengs. I always wanted them.” 

Lily grinned. “You missed out on a lifetime of fighting for supper leftovers and wrestling in muddy fields.”

Gilbert laughed, a shaky, hiccuping chuckle, but a laugh nonetheless. Lily beamed. 

“Did you win?”

“Oh _all_ the time, especially the wrestling matches.” Lily wiggled her eyebrows. “Tom used to call me a slippery eel. An _anguille glissante_.” She clarified. “Because I was so small.”

Gilbert shook his head. “Une petite fille soldat.” He grinned at her. “My Adrienne will not believe it when I tell ‘er.”

Lily smiled. “Your wife?”

“Oui. She ‘ates dirt in generaal. She will be mortifié." Gilbert chuckled, and there was a smile in his eyes. Lily blinked. That was a first. 

“That’s because your wife is a lady,” She said, not missing a beat. “And I am a _harlot_.” Lily punched his arm playfully as their faint laughter filled the dark room. 

“Shh,” Lilly giggled. “ _Shh_ , we’ll wake my papa.”

“‘e will yell at us, oui?” Gilbert chuckled amusedly at the thought. 

“Oh most certainly. And I’d blame it all on you.”

“Mademoiselle, tu m’insultes!”

“Oh _please_!”

The banter eventually died down into a hushed chatter. Lily suspected that Gilbert was pushing himself, straining to remain awake and alert in an effort to be sociable. But if a toll was being taken, he showed no signs. Besides, being cooped up for weeks on end did more than bore a person— he needed the interaction. 

He asked her about her family and she his. He wanted to know of her life in New York and in turn she wished to hear more about Versailles and its ‘splendid gardens’.

“Eef you like flowarres, you should veesit Chavaniac.”

“Oh?"

“Oui, much less people, more green _err_ y.” Lafayette declared proudly. 

“I take it you have been there?” Lily asked sarcastically.

It sailed over Gilbert’s head, which was beginning to droop no matter how many times he shook it. His eyes closed repeatedly only to be forced open in stubborn defiance. 

“I grew up there.” He said, and this time when his eyes slid shut they remained so. 

“What's it like?”

“In zhe summer it is un paradis.” Gilbert sighed wistfully. “Fleurs rouges… everywh _erre_.”

“And in the winter?” Lily pressed quietly, but she received no response. Only a soft snore.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I honestly decided to post this today just in case there's another Laf no-show tonight on Turn...)
> 
> I hope my French wasn't too imprecise... I'm regretfully not a native speaker and rely on a translator (so if anyone wants to correct me please feel free!)
> 
> So I considered this chapter important not only for Lily's character development, but also for the a chance at an actual interaction with Gil. Also, surprise! Ben much? Reading about his illness, Lafayette's recovery wasn't a positive projected outcome by most, including Dr. Cochran and Lafayette himself (which I find very sad). In fact, one of the things that plagued him the most were severely painful migraines. Also, historically Washington was known to have visited the Marquis only when he was sleeping, and wouldn't generally stay too long. In fact, he really wouldn't even go into the room! The poor man really was afraid of doing more harm than good! 
> 
> As for the next chapter, it will be much more Wash/Laf focused. 
> 
> _A few facts:_  
>  So as I've been doing continues research on this since beginning this fic, I unearthed that Brinkerhoff House actually stood as Washington's headquarters in New York from September 30th until October 8th... which means that Lafayette fell ill returning to the manor and was subsequently left behind to recover (poor Gilbert). However due to the considerable progression of the fic and the fact that Washington remained at the manor for a grand total of about nine days (little more than a week), I don't plan on drawing attention to this detail. Hopefully you will be able to pardon my historical inaccuracy. *sweats*
> 
> Please let me know how I'm doing and if you have any suggestions don't hesitate to lemme' know. I only bite when I'm hungry (so all the time basically).


	6. Stagnant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Monsieur Washington I—”_   
>  _“He was shot in the leg.”_   
>  _Lily lurched, tripped, clutching the wall for balance._   
>  _“During his first battle— though I’m told he hardly noticed until the blood overflowed his boot.”_
> 
> His calf. That night he was clutching his calf. I couldn’t wake him. He thought it was the battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been five days since episode 9 and I'm still screaming over Lafayette. And Hamilton. But mostly Lafayette. 
> 
> Thanks for the read and your wonderful support :)
> 
> ****

She was frustrated. Even with his eyes closed it was discernible by the gentle huff of breath, the irregularity of her steps— agitated— as if her restless feet refused her any solace. Lily bustled around the room, tidying no doubt— Gilbert would be remiss if he hadn’t taken notice of her _agité_ habit that festered whenever she was troubled. Today, he noted, was the worst he’d witnessed her yet, most likely due to the plate of barely eaten food that was no doubt perched on his bedside table.

He’d been awake when Lily had entered, but not in the way she’d hoped. No, she had found him curled beneath his covers with pale, shaking fingers lost amongst a sea of red curls, clutching them for dear life as his lip threatened to split under the weight of his nagging teeth. He fancied that she hadn’t seen the wetness that loitered in the corners of his eyes, yet Gilbert was no fool. She was aware of his exhaustive pain, heard his cries, saw his enervation, his frustration— and his shame over it. If Lily had seen his tears she had remained silent, if only for the threadbare sake of his pride.

The headaches, they ravaged him. Endlessly he was forced to endure their twisting, spasming constriction, and more times than he could remember Gilbert had thought the merciless pounding would burst through his temple as unrelentingly as a musket ball. There was no reprieve from it, no blessed interruption from the thunderous cacophony that deafened his senses and muddled his mind. As he had said to Dr. Cochran: the pain was with him through all parts of the day, a nuisance wedded to him, it seemed, for eternity. It consumed him, battering his tenacity that was once so overwhelmingly zealous. Now all Gilbert could do was survive to the very basest of terms. He couldn’t sleep, could barely eat. Some days he would lay for hours with his eyes closed, forcing his burning mind on happier times. Faces, people he loved. Friends. Family. _Washington. Adrienne._ His _children_. They were there— their faces, their voices. Locked away in memories fogged down by the steady, torturous pulsating beat which throbbed against his temples. He could never fully reach them. See them. Hear them. It made Gilbert want to scream, but even that desire evaded him. He was too weak. Fading. Caught in a bleary limbo of past, present and pain that every so often was graced by the presence of the doctor; Lily.

But not _him_. Never—

A rapid succession of gasp and shatter would have— in healthier times— had him ricocheting off the mattress with the speed of cannon fire. Gilbert hardly winced, too tired to do much more than flutter his eyelashes. Beside him, he heard the unmistakable tinkering of broken china being fussed over. He wanted to tell her to be careful— Lily had once confided in him that she was far clumsier than she appeared, a declaration that he had rebuffed with heated cheeks and unwanted thoughts of dazzling Versailles ballrooms (or more specifically, its _floors_ )— but his lips obstinately refused to part. And even if that could have been managed, he had already exhausted himself speaking to Lily when she had arrived with his lunch— if _that_ was what it could be called. He hadn’t managed more than mouthful or two.

Resolutely, Gilbert had only just begun to summon the strength needed to force his eyes open— if only to make sure she had not cut herself on the shards (though what he would do if she had he was not entirely sure)— when from beyond the darkness of his closed lids a guttural voice spoke.

“Miss Brinkerhoff, I must apologize profusely—”

“No, no—” Lily protested from Gilbert’s left, the clatter of plate pieces being rounded up punctuating her hurried words.

“— I had no intention of startling you so ruinously.”

“It’s fine, please General. It’s fine. Really. I-I just,” Lily stood, shuffled. Blood rushed like a broken dam past Gilbert’s ears, his heart pounding. “wasn’t expecting you until evening, sir.”

“I do not wish to intrude. Merely, I found myself with a free moment and thought it would be best preserved here.”

Whether Lily faltered or spoke Gilbert could not say. His mind was a gale that battered and beat against it’s throbbing chains.

_Mon cher Général._

He could not move— his body betrayed him, right down to the shiver of eyelids that refused to flutter even a fraction. He was too tired; mind frayed, body exhausted. A prisoner, trapped in the heaviness of his own body. Forced to lay motionless while the world spun round and round without him. What was worse, the steady lull of voices was beginning to drag him downwards, and horrified Gilbert fought against the burial of sleep. _No, not yet_. He’d waited so long. _Too_ long, to hear that voice.

“—confess I was afraid we would not be seeing you for some time.”

A pregnant pause.

“Is he…?”

“Asleep? Yes.”

 _Non_. The thought rebounded in the solitude of his mind, the black sea that swam endless before his eyes. Nonnon _non_. J _e suis ne pas. S’il vous plaît. Je sis ne pas._ They could not know. He was trapped, ensnared in a comatose embrace. Little more than lucid.

“The _same_.” George amended gruffly. “His condition?” 

“Oh.” The tiny sound spoke volumes, it was all that needed to be said. She continued anyway, sounding nervous. Gilbert didn’t blame her; he’d been the same when he’d first met His Excellency. _Enfer_ , he still was. “He is… yes.” She said timidly.

The silence was anything but.

Small, gentle fingers danced along his left arm, feeling the bandage there. “I was just going to change these, and then I’ll leave you to—”

“Might I?” Washington’s voice was too quick, too nervous. It unsettled the small part of Lafayette still clinging to consciousness to hear the General sound so… uncertain. _Insecure_. “Change them, that is. It is… the least I could do for him.”

The exchange above him blurred abruptly, lost in the confused muddle of Gilbert’s numbing fatigue; the failing resolve to defy the staggering exhaustion which would inevitably overwhelm him. His eyes reeled upwards, lost beneath lids as fragile as moth wings.

Someone was touching his arm again, the thought registering several moments late. Large, trembling, warm. The hands had unwrapped the bandages which transcended his left forearm, fingers trembling as they brushed lightly against his skin. The going was slow, every second registered by the sluggish heartbeat in his chest, and more than once Gilbert drifted into the limbo of sleep before being tugged back by the gentle rustle of unraveling cloth. He stirred unconsciously as the rough pads of fingertips tentatively grazed the scarring flesh that lay raised against pale skin. A gasp stole through the silence, the noise soft and gentle like a nighttime breeze. Gilbert’s eyes roved lethargically in their perennial twilight. Had he gasped? He didn't know— wasn’t sure— yet the groan of pain as his arm was straightened most definitely had escaped _his_ throat.

The hands faltered immediately.

“I’ve hurt him.” It was a statement wracked with guilt. Horrified.

“Your Excellency?” A swishing of skirts. Another set of fingers had taken hold of his arm— tinier, daintier. More firm. His body could barely summon the energy to tense as the slight digits ran over lacerations scabbed and sore. “Oh _Gilbert_.” Lily whispered, so quietly that Gilbert was half certain he’d imagined it. Lily sighed, moving again.

“He’s nearly bled through the bandages.” Washington protested bitterly, his voice cracking brokenly. “I was under the impression that the bloodletting took place three days ago at the least.”

“ _Four_.” Her reply was nearly lost in the disarray of frantic rustling. “He must have reopened some of the cuts during the night. Here, Sir— please, hold this for me.

“During the night?” Washington echoed, baffled.

“He does not sleep well.” Lily’s words were hesitant. “He… thrashes. Has nightmares. His headaches are worst after dark.” Someone was taking hold of his arm, pulling it until it was straight. Something cool and wet was placed against it. It burned, sharp and poignant, the sensation intensifying, as if someone were pricking his flesh with a hot poker. Despite his weakness, the feeble cry of pain that managed to work its way past lips twisted in misery was loud enough to cause the hand on his arm to tighten in shock. Gilbert yelped, his attempt to jerk away pitifully useless. He cried out again, face contorting torturously.

“ _STOP IT!_ ” The roar was like a thunderclap, so deafeningly forceful that something on the beside table rattled with its reverberations. Gilbert’s ears rang. The cloth against his arm vanished, and with it the terrible burning. Something loud banged beside him, its sloshing contents slapping the floor wetly. There was a moment of silence, a pulsating tick of time that Gilbert hardly noticed, still reeling from the excruciating ache that stretched down his throbbing arm. And then—

“What did you do?” Washington’s voice was deadly calm. “To him?” The hands, large and warm and shaking, were back upon his brow, his cheek.

“I-I- He-” Lily spluttered.

“WHAT DID YOU _DO?_ ” The mysterious object upon the dresser rattled again.

“I needed to clean the wounds he reopened— they needed to be sterilized, so I— _Sir?_ ” She asked, astonished.

“Forgive my- my eruption.” The plea was muffled, suppressed by a palm, and sluggishly Gilbert realized that the hand upon his brow was missing. “I did not mean to frighten you.”

The silence had returned, muted and resilient, as hard and cold as a moonless night. There was a hushed shuffle of movement, the noise nearly deadened to Gilbert’s ears. His left arm was being handled again, the grip gentle on his wrist, his elbow.

“If… If you still would like to help, his arm needs to be dressed.”

Small to large, the hands grazing his skin transferred.

“Have…” Lily faltered, sounding uncomfortable. “ Have you ever…?”

“A deplorable soldier I would be if I had no inclination of the proceedings of dressing a wound, Miss Brinkerhoff.” The words were gruff, but not unkind. “I merely require the bandages.”

He was too weary, his body overtaxed. Gilbert sagged heavily into the mattress, the finespun thread of consciousness left to him focused only on the heavy hands upon his arm— the deep, familiar baritone that spoke unintelligible words beside him. The airy texture of cloth being layed over his wrist— once, twice, thrice, circling up his arm at a creeping pace— was accompanied by the steady tremble of Washington’s fingers. Faintly he felt the bandages wrapped snuggly around his right forearm loosening, an uncomfortable contrast to the warm lull that emanated from the gentle caresses of shy fingertips across his left arm. The careful prodding and poking of a slender digit against blistered, tender flesh had the air crumpling in his lungs.

“These look much better.” Lily murmured, the jitters that had plagued her voice assuaged.

“But these…”

The steady, rhythmic abeyance of gentle fingers and snug, fresh cloth faltered, and even reeling within the black Lafayette heard Washington’s harefooted inhalation.

“What is it?”

A sigh. The stir of moving air. The tail end of one of Gilbert’s reddish locks tickled across his face as someone swished past. Heavy fingers brushed it back into place, stroking his cheek faintly before a palm smoothed across his brow.

“The cut closest to the crook of his elbow, it’s not a good color— been bleeding a lot.” She sounded breathless. _Scared_. “It’s worrying me. When Dr. Cochran switched to his right arm during the bloodletting… I told him the Marquis was at his limit but—”

“— _Is it infected?_ ” The strain in Washington’s voice was so discernible that Gilbert was able to paint the lines of worry on a face so intimate to him in his mind’s eye.

“Not yet. But I’m afraid it will have to be cleaned. Thoroughly.”

The face that floated in the dusk of his memory was beginning to fade, and with a breathless sob that didn’t quite reach his lips Gilbert fought to hold onto the man’s image. But to no avail. His breath was coming in fat, dragging waves, body immobile in its dazed, callous aloofness.

“So be it.”

He was slipping, his mind drugged, and with a finality as pacific as a wave on the water Gilbert succumbed.

He awoke screaming. Ensnared in a web of delirium, his thoughts tangled and choked as the blinding painpain _pain_ bit deep into the flesh of his right arm. _His arm_. Something held it aloft—treacherous fingers— a hook from whence it dangled and bled and shrieked in searing agony. Distantly Gilbert heard a pitiful noise, lost somewhere between a wretched sob and a moan, too lost in the writhing torture of some hellish purgatory to realize it had bounded from his own throat. Across his chest there lay a weighted mass, so great that no matter how much he twisted he could not escape it. Something clutched at his temple— his hair— The pain came again, ebbing and flowing like the rush of an ocean’s tide, and desperately

“ _—him down!_ ”

he tried to roll away from it. The pressure on his chest tightened immeasurably at his weak thrashing, and gasping Gilbert’s eyes reeled as something warm and wet spattered onto his cheek.

_I’msorryI’msosorrysonI’msosorry—_

It was a mantra, whispered, echoed tenfold in the delirious gloom behind his closed eyes. He knew that voice. That pain was fading, the throb and its echoing sting forsaking his arm. _Everything_ was fading and he _knew that voice_. Wilting into the mattress Gilbert finally managed to crack open his eyes, choking on the desperate gasps of air that wheezed haphazardly into his lungs. Sweat ran across his brow, trickled down his temples, and in the bleary murk of his slitted vision Gilbert saw.

An arm lay firmly across his chest, pinning him steadfast to the bed while a hand stroked through a tangle of messy red curls. A few stray tears betrayed Washington, dripping to land hotly upon his forehead, in his hair. To trickle down his temples.

The mantra played on, a chant so low and faint that it hardly existed.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry my son. My son—”

A delicate murmuring to his right, melodic in its indistinction.

“That this should have happened—” A deep rumble. That voice. He knew that voice. He _knew_ it.

“—to him, of all people—” 

His lips parted, dry and cracked.

“ _He doesn’t deserve it_.”

Gilbert was so tired. So god awfully tired. His eyelids protested even the faintest movement, his lungs singing their nagging ache incessantly, yet still he fought. Fought to drag his lids open. Fought for the words. Three little words, just out of reach it seemed.

“C-c’est…”

Gilbert reeled, mouth working convulsively as he choked on words which refused to dislodge from his throat. So tired, he was so tired. Tiredtired _tired_.

“C’e… bon…”

The hair matted against his forehead was gone, pulled back with the gentle stroke of a large, devote hand.

“…père…” 

He was crumbling

_tired so tired so_

unable to weather it any longer he collapsed abruptly into unconsciousness.

 

  
“What did he say?”

Her hand was plastered rigid over her lips, muffling the soft sob that had slipped unbidden from between them. The tremor in the poor man’s voice did little to ebb the flow of tears that threatened to spill from her eyes, and embarrassed Lily spun around, her back to the scene.

“It’s. Okay.” Her knuckle pressed firmly into her lips, making the response all but indistinct. Wiping her eyes hastily, Lily turned around.

“He said it’s okay.” She omitted the last part. The final, heart-rending word.

George’s face, already so aged with lines of misery, crumpled.

Perhaps it was the way the man sat— so dauntless when she’d first met him, face a stone mask— hunched as close as possible to the mattress’s side, spine curved in on itself to the point that he looked nearly as feeble as Lafayette. Lily forced herself to grab the soiled bandages that sprawled across the floorboards, eyes never leaving the two motionless figures across from her. Perhaps it was the image of a broken man that compelled her to speak.

“I know that he appears to have not regained much of his health,” her eyes caught the bony sharpness of Gilbert’s collarbone, so much more pronounced than was natural. A little shiver ran through her. “But… when he’s awake— _truly_ awake— when the headaches aren’t plaguing him…” She shook her head. “I’ve never been around someone more pleasant and with such an outstanding sense of humor.”

Lily glanced up meekly to find herself snared in Washington’s gaze. Hastily she looked away. But not before catching the faintest of fond smiles on the man’s lips. Such a tender gesture bid her to continue, though she was beginning to think that her endeavor at words of comfort was more babble than anything.

“Yesterday,” she permitted herself a faint chuckle, “yesterday I brought him his supper and he gave me such a funny look. Protested left and right about how he was still full from lunch.” Lily glanced at Washington. “He hadn’t eaten all day. He’d been sleeping.”

The laughter, however faint, she’d partially— hopefully— been expecting. The tears she had not. Lily blanched as Washington brought a hand up to wipe at his eyes, the watery smile on his face unfaltering.

“Monsieur Washington I—”

“He was shot in the leg.”

Lily lurched, tripped, clutching the wall for balance.

“During his first battle— though I’m told he hardly noticed until the blood overflowed his boot.”

_His calf. That night he was clutching his calf. I couldn’t wake him. He thought it was the battle._

“Dr. Cochran administered what care he could give within the confines of a local church. Layed him out on a table. As I was informed, when a handful of officers entered the room the Marquis begged them not to eat him. Apparently they looked especially ravenous after the battle.”

Lily laughed, the melodic noise bursting within the eternal hush of the sickroom. She couldn’t help it— it sounded so much like something Gilbert would say. She’d have to joke with him when he awoke. Beside Lafayette, Washington permitted himself a smile.

“I was so… _tremendously_ proud of him that day. When I realized his actions upon the field. I still am…”

“He’s not easily daunted, is he?”

Washington opened his mouth then froze, alarm icy chips in smokey pupils. Lafayette was stirring, a soft groan escaping his throat as he shifted some, a hand twitching convulsively. The General was nearly out of his seat— intentions set on flight— before Lily spoke up quickly.

“There’s no need to depart. I’ve seen him fuss more than that in his sleep.”

Looking somewhat abashed— _the General of the Continental Army,_ embarrassed— Washington slowly edged back into his seat, his hand finding Gilbert’s shoulder unconsciously.

“I do not wish him any more stress than he must endure.”

Lily nodded understandingly. “Sit with him a while, I promise he won’t wake. He needs the company.” Furtively her eyes trailed over Gilbert, narrowing. It wasn’t until the Commander in Chief finally departed that she reentered the room, crossed to the bedside rapidly, and took Gilbert’s hand.

“I know you’ve been awake.”

Tear tracks glistened along the sides of his temples, and as she beheld him another pearly droplet abandoned the corner of his eye, trickling downwards at a lamenting pace.

“Gilbert? Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas? Why do you cry?”

Almost imperceptibly he shook his head. Lily understood. Her brother had been the same way and so, she reckoned, were most men. Emotion was always harder to express for them. At least, that was what her brother would tell her.

“ _E’ ees… afraid._ ” Gilbert breathed. “ _De moi_.” Another tear.

Lily felt something within her wilt. Sinking to the bed, she perched beside him, taking his hand in her own.

“Pouvez-vous ouvrir vos yeux?” She knew it was a struggle. No doubt redressing his wounds had taxed his strength tremendously. Regardless, he needed to. Floating in such darkness was far too malignant a way to pass such large quantities of time.

“S’il vous plaît? Gilbert?”

His face contorted, a gasping breath escaping him as he struggled. And then she was looking into big brown eyes, doe-eyed and damp. 

“Hey,” she said softly. He sighed, breaking his watery gaze from her own, eyes trailing upwards. 

Lily bit her lip. “How much did you hear?”

His lips worked soundlessly for a moment.

“Eve _rr_ y… thing.”

In that moment Lily wanted nothing more than to hug him, to transfer any semblance of comfort into the despondent listlessness of his tone— his frame— those sad eyes… Though she dared not be so bold as to do anything more than stroke the back of his hand with her thumb.

“Well then you heard it for yourself,” she murmured, “that man loves you very much.” Lafayette’s gaze flickered down to meet with hers. “He fears not you, but what could become of you.” She continued plainly. “It is his chief worry that he should have some contribution in your suffering.”

Lafayette blinked, sniffed wetly, and Lily caught a treacherous tear with her finger before it could stain the pillow.

“Then why does… ‘e run? If that… ees all, why does ‘e… not stay when… I am… awake?” He was breathing heavily, the strain of such a long sentence mercilessly taking its toll. His eyes slipped shut.

Lily’s heart ached. “He is horrified that he might… do more harm than good. That seeing him would overexcite you. That it might deter your recovery.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “He is trying his best. He’s just uncertain. _Il vous aime_ , I can see it in his every action. And his eyes.”

She waited, her brow furrowing, but he remained motionless. Silent.

“Gilbert." She touched his shoulder gently. " _Gilbert?_ ”

Lily rolled her eyes, warmed with fondness. He was asleep.

 

 

“Absolutely not!” Came the shrill protest.

“But doctor, I think it would do him much good! It’s been weeks, the poor man could use one. Just think of all the good it would do. And I’m sure Monsieur Lafayette would appreciate not smelling like a week old—”

Dr. Cochran spun abruptly on his heel, so brusquely that Lily nearly collided with him. “I said no, Miss Brinkerhoff—”

“— _Lily_ —”

“— and for good reason.” Cochran sniffed, drawing himself up to his full height. Lily resisted the urge to snort. Unlike Gilbert, the doctor only measured an inch or so taller than her. Not exactly his most intimidating feature…

“Many reasons, actually.”

Lily’s eyes narrowed. “List them.” She challenged stubbornly.

Cochran’s brows rose so high it was almost comical, yet he obliged all the same. “Well… well I haven’t the faintest idea how we would get him to the washroom.”

“Jerald and my papa could help him.”

“And if he falls asleep?” 

“He just needs to lie in the bathtub, doctor, nothing more.”

“And when he is finally removed? When he is carried— _carried_ , Miss Lily, because I know not how he will stay awake long enough to even get _into_ the bath— back to his room, his bed—”

“—Which is in dire need of fresh linens—”

“—He will catch a _chill!_ ” Cochran exclaimed exasperatedly, tossing his hands skyward as he spun around. “And if by some blessed miracle that doesn’t occur, he will surely die from the exhaustion of it all. The fatigue will rend him immobile for another week at the least! And then how will he eat? The headaches are enough to starve him as it is!”

Lily frowned sharply, her words cold. “You’re just not giving him a chance.”

“He doesn’t _need_ a chance, Miss,” Cochran said, opening the door. “He needs rest. And food, far more than he’s been able to consume. A bath— God forbid a _warm_ bath— bears the dangerous risk of disease running rampant in opened pores. It is out of the question. Now please, rid yourself of these silly notions.” The door clicked smartly shut behind him.

She was left alone in the house’s quiet.

Lily huffed, crossing her arms tightly. This wasn’t the first time she and the doctor had been at odds, though normally she was able to gain the upper hand in some manner. Her father always had said she’d make a brilliant lawyer, something his colleagues found endlessly hysterical. A woman as a lawyer? The very notion was ludicrous!

Regardless of the doctor’s ( _somewhat panicked_ ) outline of all the sense in forgoing a bath, Lily was aware that half of his explanations were hollow to the core. He had spoken to her as if she were a child, silly and ignorant to the world. As if she hadn’t been assisting him for nearly a month. In truth, Lafayette needed change, a break from the monotony of his everyday routine… _if one could call it that_. It was not healthy to lay for so long without proper hygiene— especially one so sick as he had been. And besides, if the French queen took a bath every morning without the pores on her beautifully powdered face accumulating disease, then a small soak for a man in desperate need of one would hardly qualify as dangerous.

Now all Lily had to do was convince Gilbert.

 

  
In the end, it wasn’t anywhere near as hard as she’d imagined it would be. In fact it wasn’t hard at _all_. Having spent nearly half an hour reviewing what she would say, Lily could hardly be blamed for the way she stumbled nonplussed over her carefully prepared words when Gilbert— upon hearing the word ‘bath’— immediately responded ‘ _Oui_ ’.

“P-pardon?”

“Oui, je voudrais prendre un bain.” There was a gleam in his eyes, a spark of excitement as he tried and failed to sit up. Instead, he weakly settled back on his elbows, staring at Lily with a heartbreakingly hopeful expression.

“Uh… well… This isn’t the doctor’s idea, Gilbert.” Lily fiddled with her skirts, smoothing them fruitlessly. “It’s mine. Dr. Cochran was quite against bathing in general.” She quirked a brow at him. “Thought you’d catch a cold again. Or a disease. Or—”

“—fall asleep een zhe.. le bain?”

Lily giggled. “Actually yes, he did mentioned that.”

Lafayette rolled his eyes tiredly. “Eet ees my ‘ealth to do with as I wish…” He frowned, “and I wish to not smell like I just came out of a battle.”

“You _look_ like you just came out of a battle.” Lily whispered none too quietly.

“Excusez- _moi_?”

“Oh, nothing.” She smiled mischievously.

Gilbert grinned, feigning incredulity. “You a _rr_ e a petit imp, you know zhat Miss Lily?”

Lily groaned. “Oh please don’t call me _‘Miss’_. Tom used to say that it made me sound like an old spinster.” She jumped then, alarmed at the sudden peal of laughter that had burst from Lafayette.

“Well aren’t you lively today. Save some of that energy for the bath, Monsieur.”

Lafayette snorted, fastening her with a wry look. “Let us make an accord, zhen. I will not call you 'Miss' if you promeese to not call me _'Monsieur_ '— eet makes _me_ feel old and… eh… _ennuyeuse_. A good deal, _oui?_ ”

Lily grinned. “Oui.” She pointed at him. “Now lay down while I go fetch water for the bath.”

“I will try to stay put.” Came the sarcastic reply.

“I’m serious Gilbert, don’t waste your energy before I’ve even filled the bath. Try and sleep while I—”

A snore.

Lily whipped around, “Mon Dieu, cet homme sera la mort de moi!”

“… no I will not.”

“ _Gilbert!_ ”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _THE DADWASH FEELS!!1!!_  
>     
> After reading one of Alex Rose's tweets (that killed me inside tbh) that they had to cut a feelsy scene where Washington confides in Laf during the last episode, I really just needed more of them together to compensate, so this chapter... happened... (srsly tho I want that scene released).
> 
> Historically, especially towards the end of the 18th century, baths weren't too common, but weren't unheard of every so often (Marie Antoinette really did prefer a morning baths). Then again, not everyone was a queen with endless access to clean water... Warm baths in particular were frowned upon, because it was believed they were a breeding ground for diseases to enter one's opened pores. So they just bathed in, yep, cool water. Which was probably easier, since the people of that time had a painstaking time heating all that water themselves (and to think I struggle with modern baths...).
> 
> Also, this little budding friendship between Lily and Gilbert?? I blame that entirely on Lily's character. 
> 
> Lovely readers, I'd love to hear feedback from you. How am I doing? Is there anything you want to see interaction-wise between Laf and his dad? Laf and Lily? Just lemme know and thanks again for reading!


	7. Dousing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Washington cocked his head and, after a moment, flashed a small smile. Such a rare sight captivated Lafayette, thrusting him back into speechless ogling._
> 
> _“I… was merely inquiring if I had come at a bad time...?” He said awkwardly, voice gruffer than usual._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not gonna survive this hiatus guys. I can't do it. I think I've rewatched season three twice already. Someone send help pls.
> 
> ****

To say that he wasn’t expecting Brewster to sidle out from behind a tent, a brilliant grin already spread upon his lips, was a laughable understatement. Or at least _Ben_ thought so, the breath knocked out of him in an audible huff as he was sent crashing to the slick ground that was  more mud than anything. 

“Watch it there Tallboy!” Caleb chuckled, extending an arm which Ben quickly took. With a surprised grunt he was hauled upwards rapidly, a steadying hand falling on Caleb’s shoulder as Ben’s momentum nearly barreled the shorter man over. Frowning at the mischievous gleam in his friend’s eyes, Ben broke free of Brewster’s grip, hands rubbing vainly at the mud-flecked blotches staining his breeches. 

“I’m quite certain _you_ were the one who ran into _me_ Caleb.” He admonished with a half smirk, running a hand through hair that had come loose from its messily knotted ribbon. “You should warn someone before you dart in front of them.”

Caleb jerked back and squinted at him, hard, cocking his head as a wry look began to slowly spread from his lips to his cheeks and beyond. 

Ben faltered, gaping back owlishly.  “Caleb is there a reason that you’re—?”

“Ya do know I was standin’ there waitin’ for ya, right Tallmadge?”

Ben opened his mouth and closed it just as fast, face caught halfway between shock and a frown.  “I don’t recall—”

“Right out in the open. I even called your name.”

Disoriented, Ben shifted, trying to recount any details of the moment prior to their collision. Finding that he could not, he diffidently ducked his head in a piteous attempt to shield his reddening face from Caleb. 

“I don’t really—”

“ _Twice_.”

Ben wavered, the words on his lips crumbling to a halting silence. Confusion associated with anyone as self-assured as Caleb Brewster was a rare thing to behold indeed, and the bemusement mirrored plain as day on Brewster’s face alarmed him, from the crease in his brow to the slightly downturned pucker of ruddy lips. 

“You _did?_ ” Ben’s voice was almost comically small. He was being canvassed like he was a short step away from tumbling headfirst into the doctor’s tent.

Caleb’s frown deepened. “Are you feeling alright Tallb…” A flash of white hidden behind the dark scraggle of beard sent Ben reeling in bewilderment as Caleb suddenly grinned deeply, _devilishly_ , at him, the familiar crinkles around his eyes and lips valleys in the intensity of his smile. 

“I— did I miss something?” Ben asked fumblingly. 

Caleb chuckled, head wagging back and forth as he doubled over. Ben could only raise a concerned brow as his laughter grew, cheeks flushed and eyes watering.

“I can’t believe it.” Caleb wheezed, running a hand over his red face. “I can’t— I can’t _believe_ it!”

Ben shifted, bafflement rendering him mute. He suddenly found himself wholly confused with the event employed before him. He _hated_ being confused. “Can’t believe what? I don’t— _Damnit Brewster why are you smiling at me like that?_ ”

Caleb only shook his head, laughing so hard he clutched at his stomach. His hand clapped itself onto Ben’s shoulder, steadying him as he wavered, laughter booming. 

Shrugging away from Caleb’s grip, something in Ben snapped. 

“For the love of God Caleb Brewster would you quit your laughing and tell me _what the hell is—_ ” 

“Who is she?”

He hadn’t actually thought it was possible to choke on one’s own tongue, but by God he nearly did. Face a gravel mask, Ben felt the beginnings of a pinprick sweat forming on the nape of his neck. His hands. Eyes blown wide he reverted his gaze from Caleb, clammy palm rubbing the back of his neck absently. 

“ _She?_ I’m afraid I don’t know who nor what you mean.”

Caleb scoffed, straightening. “Ah none of that shite Ben! You’ve been drifting your ass around camp in a haze the past coupla’ days— ever since you went to see the Marquis. Now there’s only a handful o’ things that could get a man that dazed— I can’t believe I didn’t thinka’ this sooner— and since no one’s given you a good smack on the head since Braddock I’ll ask ya again. _Who’s the lady?_ ”

His ears burned. Ben hunched his shoulders and looked away, cheeks feeling like they’d just been doused with scalding water. His mind reeled, scrambling to review his actions— _or lack thereof_ — the past few days. He honestly could not say he remembered much more than the sad, worried cerulean of Hamilton’s gaze — the man had become noticeably reserved since news of the Marquis’ fickle, declined state, a feat that caused a strain to slip itself into Laurens’ tense gaze— and the greying back of the General’s head as he sat disconsolately at his desk. That was _it_. There was _nothing_ else. He _remembered_ nothing else. He’d just been busy, quite busy. _Extremely_ busy. Far too buried in his employment to even chance a thought towards some… some… blue eyed

blond haired

strong spoken 

 _mystery_ woman. 

He was lying to himself. _Badly_. Ben knew it.

He chanced a glance up at Caleb and visibly winced. The grin was thicker than ever, spreading from ear to ear.

Caleb _definitely_ knew it. 

A thick arm was roughly slung over his shoulders, pulling him into a firm chest that shook with Caleb’s unfaltering chuckles. Ben grunted, trying to pull back against the tight grip that locked him to his friend’s side, but it was to no avail. He might be taller, but Caleb had always been stronger. 

“Bennyboy finally has his eye on a lady.” Brewster cackled. “Or rather, the _lady_ has _him_.” Caleb swept his gaze in a once-over past Ben’s tired facade and flaming cheeks. “And completely, by the looks of it.”

“ _Brewster_ ,” Ben all but moaned, the whine in his voice forgotten in the mortification of the moment. “I’m not some boy who needs an announcement made to the whole ca—”

“Ah but ya are, aren’t ya? After all, you’re still a vir—”

In a fit of panicked strength Ben managed to twist around in Caleb’s grip, slapping a firm hand to his friend’s mouth. Caleb kept talking, shrugging Ben’s palm aside with a grin. 

“—wager even the Marquis’ had a poke an’ he’s just a baby. I think he’s technically still considered a boy, y’know Benny, but you—”

“ _BREWSTER_.”

Caleb wavered, grin wider and more dazzling than the sun, his next words hesitant. Beside him Ben was more crimson than a lobsterback and looked twice as miserable. 

“Just tell me one thing Benny, and I’ll stop my teasing…

“Can I get that in writing?” He grumbled wearily, still caught in his friend’s strong grip.

Caleb nudged his ribs with an elbow. “Is the lass comely?”

Whatever Caleb had been expecting, it surely wasn’t the defeated sigh that escaped Ben as he sagged like a rag doll, looking to all the world a defeated man. “Yes,” came the quiet response. “Yes, _very_.” 

Caleb’s brows rocketed skyward, lips forming a perfect ‘O’ before he forced his expression blank, schooling his voice into nonchalance.

“Oh? How so?”

Ben sighed again, breaking out of Caleb’s hold gently. “She— she has…

“A nice rear?” Caleb interjected helpfully. “A fine pair of—?”

  “…these _eyes_.”

“Eyes.. eyes are nice…”

Ben shot him a glare, soft and meaningless. “They were cobalt blue, deeper than the sky on a cloudless summer day. Think Hamilton’s, but bluer.”

Caleb threw back his head and all but howled. “Tallboy did you just compare your lass to Captain Hamilton?”

“She’s not my lass.” Ben shot back too quickly, suddenly too keen on the dirt beneath his nails. 

“Alright, alright Ben, well what else? Or are her eyes the short and long of it?”

Ben bit the bait. “She’s small; I’d wager she comes up to my chin and no more.”

“I’d wager _I_ come up to your chin,” Caleb chuckled.

“The way she carried herself, the way she spoke— if you saw her you’d think her the greatest beauty in the colonies Caleb, I’d bet my life on it.” Ben bit his lip, casting a glance over Caleb’s carefully indifferent expression. He looked a bit like a puppy, Brewster thought, and the notion amused him tremendously. Major Benjamin Tallmadge, Yale graduate genius, spy-master of the Culper Ring, a vulnerable, befuddled puppy lost in any advancement towards this woman. 

“She’s got a mind.” Ben continued, oblivious to Caleb’s poorly concealed mirth. “And she’s not afraid to use it. She thinks— _speaks_ — boldly. Unafraid. Like no other woman I’ve met…”

Caleb resisted the urge to roll his eyes. _The_ _mind_. Of course Ben would be entranced by a woman with a brazen sense of self. A grin spilt onto his lips, wild and delighted. It was all fun and games until that stubbornness directed towards oneself, and wouldn’t _that_ be a funny thing to witness Ben attempt to handle. 

Caleb liked the sound of this little lady already. 

Ben’s reaccounting had stuttered to a halt. Looking more nervous than irked, he frowned at Caleb. 

“Why are you grinning at me like that?” 

“Oh it’s nothin’. Just tryin’ to think up the kind of woman who could get you this helpless.”

 

 

“Damnit Gilbert, if you don’t let me get that shirt off I’m throwing you in fully clothed!” 

“You cannot. I am too ‘eavy.”

Lily shot a frustrated glare over her shoulder, matching Lafayette’s eye for eye. Secretly she pitied the woman who had to go up against such a perfected pout, but she would rather go through the grueling, sweaty process of hauling Lafayette all the way to the wash room again than admit that. 

“Gilbert please—”

“I do not need your _‘elp_ taking my own shirt off, _merci_.”

Lily sighed, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “You’re right, so then uncross your arms, sit up, and take it off please.”

Lafayette’s glare deepened, cheeks splotched with darkening shades of pink. He slid down in his seat slightly, hunching his shoulders, arms crossed tight over his chest. The frown on his lips was so severe Lily was half-afraid the sullen look would freeze on his face. She remained quiet, biting her lip in place of speaking her mind. However obstinate she could be, Lily had learned at a young age— thanks to Thomas and, sometimes, her father— how exceedingly intractable men could prove to be. Such relentless inflexibility was best faced with a few firms words and a dosage of reticence— or so her mother had prescribed. To steer them in the desired direction and allow them to discover it for themselves, that was the best solution, one her mother had perfected long ago in regard to her husband. And so Lily made herself busy, bustling around the room airily, checking the bathwater, realigning the soaps she had brought from her room. Mindless busywork. Pointless, frivolous, time-wasting chores she performed with an air of nonchalance. But always she kept aware, awaiting the inevitable realization—

“Uh… Miss… Lily?”

“Lily _._ Just Lily please.” She hummed.

“ _Oui_ , Lily, I… _um_ …” He sounded desperate. Lily turned briskly, secretly satisfied that he had come to his senses— and faltered. 

His arms were the only thing visible, poking at awkward angles from the neck of his shirt, the billowy fabric having gotten stuck just over his head so that a few copper curls peeped out from the collar. 

“I… I cannot get theese… shirt off by myself.” His heavy accent was muffled. “Je- Je suis coincé…”

“Oh mon _Dieu_.” Lily gasped, rushing over in a flurry of skirts to grasp at the lightweight material. 

“Je suis désolé. _I_ … Je me suis fatigué.”

“Hush.” She murmured. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” Gently she worked the shirt upwards, Lafayette’s arms collapsing bonelessly into his lap the moment she freed them from the sleeves. His pale chest shook, and when she pulled the shirt over his head it was to reveal him laughing, cheeks round and rouge with the fullness of his grin. 

Lily snorted softly. “What?”

Lafayette shook his head, looking away, and she prodded him. 

“ _What?_ ”

“Zhe… last time someone did this eet was my wife.” Gilbert chuckled, but there was a devilish gleam in his tired eyes. He was trying to fluster her, Lily knew. But two could play at that game. 

“Well, unlike your wife, you’re not the first man I’ve seen half naked.” She quipped smoothly, balling his shirt up and tossing it into a nearby basket. When she turned back around the look on Gilbert’s reddening face was one of complete mortification. His eyes were blown wide, mouth slightly agape, and throwing her head back she laughed. The poor man looked every bit as traumatized as he was fatigued.

“I meant I live in a house of all men, Gilbert.”

She hadn’t thought it possible, but his cheeks burned redder still.

“Oh.”

Spinning to check the bathwater Lily laughed again, a soft, high sound like honey, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Gilbert smile to himself. 

“Touché.”

“ _Merci_.” She all but sang over her shoulder. She had drawn the water from the well nearly two hours previous, and as her fingertips brushed its placid surface it was not the bitingly cold temperature that had greeted her previously, but lukewarm. It was ready. Turning to Gilbert, who had been eyeing her quizzically from his chair, Lily dried her hands on her apron and nodded in his direction.

“Bath’s ready. Now unbutton your breeches and try to sit straight so we can get them off.” She’d half been expecting a protest of some kind, yet Lafayette merely lowered his gaze, face still flushed and flaming crimson with renewed embarrassment as long, elegant fingers fumbled at fastenings. He refused to look at her, glassy eyes trained instead upon the awaiting bath. The discomfort curled off of him crest after crest, and abruptly Lily regretted her blunt choice of words. Small hands laid themselves hesitantly over larger ones, feeling the slight tremble in them, and Lily’s brows knitted together tightly when Gilbert’s gaze slowly rose to meet her own. 

“You don’t have to take them off.” She murmured. “If it makes you uncomfortable.” 

Gilbert’s eyes widened slightly. He opened his mouth, closed it, frowned, but before anything could be said Lily had fetched his shirt, shaking it out earnestly.

“Lily,” Gilbert protested.

“If you want to put your shirt back on, before we remove your— if that would—”

“Lily.”

“—make this all a bit more—”

“S’il vous plaît, Lily, I—”

“—bearable then—”

Cold fingers encircled her wrists, gently halting her flustered approach. Lily lowered the shirt, peeking over it to find Gilbert regarding her with soft eyes and a gentle smile. The heat was in his face was cooling, a fiery bittersweet blush shifting to a thin pink that tinged his sharp cheekbones in its rosy hue. 

“Zhat ees not necess _arr_ y. Zhe shirt, I mean. I ‘ave on… ah… _caleçons_.”

Lily drew back slowly. She had forgotten. Dr. Cochran and Jerald had redressed him in a dry pair of ill-fitting, baggy breeches weeks ago in an effort to ward off any chill. 

“Zo I can just wear those, non?” Gilbert fidgeted, still looking uncomfortable. It bothered her, the look of unease that had crept from his face to melt into his limbs. The way he bowed himself over his bare chest, wiry shoulders cowed inwards. She wanted to ask him what was wrong— _what was it that bothered him so?_ — but the gleam in his eye that almost pled for silence had her lips pressing together in a firm line. Lily nodded. 

“Do you need help with your…” She gestured to his breeches. “Do you need help?” 

“I would… like to try. Moi même.”

Lily bit back her uncertainty and relented. “Just ask me for assistance if you need it, oui?”

Lafayette nodded, and not two minutes later her name was called. He had managed to get his breeches down around his knees and was sitting back, shoulders drooping heavily, exhausted evident in the labored rise and fall of his breast. 

“I cannot… Eet is too much.”

Lily nodded, taking the pants by the their waist and gently working them off. As she slipped them downwards over lean, porcelain-pale legs Lily chanced a glance upwards. Gilbert’s face was haggard and white, shoulders huddle. Head tucked low. He looked miserable.

“Pourquoi es-tu triste?” Lily suddenly didn’t care if it wasn’t her place to ask, she couldn’t take those mournful brown eyes any longer. Lafayette flinched from whatever reverie had captured his mind, teeth worrying at his lower lip. He refused to look at her. 

“Gilbert?”

“…Do you not find me too _maigre_?” The words dropped like stones, arrested somewhere between a whisper and a growl. 

“What?”

“Too… too slight? “ He was apologetic, voice halting, head hung low. 

Lily balked, the realization slamming home. He was ashamed. Long lithe limbs, his slender build— Gilbert was downright _ashamed_ of himself. All at once she was lost, buried in the wreckage of emotion— shock, heartache, _rage_. This insecurity was not— could not be— borne entirely of his own perceptions. No, no— this was a premeditated snub, something no doubt concocted at that fraudulent court across the sea. Whispered behind doorways, in corridors, always just loud enough to hear. 

For a moment, all she saw was red. 

“A _bsolument pas._ ” Lily barked, and felt Gilbert jump a little at her tone. Meekly she amended it into something softer. Quieter.

“No. No, Gilbert I think everything about you is perfectly wonderful.”

He didn’t respond, and in the ensuing silence Lily felt herself growing an increasingly ridiculous shade of cardinal. Had she sad something wrong? She forced her gaze upwards, fingers still tangled in the rough material around his legs. There was a shyness in his eyes, but also comfort, warm and at ease. Gilbert’s eyes held a faint smile, and after a moment Lily resumed her task of removing his breeches. Time seemed to stretch long and lean out before them, and it wasn’t until she’d reached his ankles that Lily’s wandering mind was hit with a memory. The sudden grin that fought its way onto her features was callously ignorant of the exchange that had just transpired. Lily bit her lip harshly in an attempt to muffle the little giggle that threatened to escape her throat. Gilbert, for all his fatigue, noticed rather quickly. 

“Quoi?”

She shook her head and Gilbert groaned, nudging her with his leg. 

“Ees this retribution for my leetle joke concerning my wife? Tell me.”

Finally Lily relented. Pulling the breeches off she caught his eye and smirked. 

“My dear Marquis, who’s the harlot _now_?”

 

 

They were still trying to smother each other’s laughter even after she had helped him into the tepid bathwater. In a fit of energy Gilbert had thrown his head back and cackled so loud that Lily had been certain someone had heard and was en route to discovering them. He’d nearly toppled out of his chair— would have, if she hadn’t darted forward to catch him— and something told Lily that he wouldn’t have even payed it much notice, he was laughing so hard. Through her fit of giggling Lily wiped at her eyes, shushing a snickering Gilbert as she stood and strode to retrieve the rag and soap she’d smuggled from her room, placing it on the wooden table beside the tub and eyeing its contents with a raised brow that arched curiously when it met his eyes. 

“How are you feeling?”

Gilbert smiled innocently enough, but the mischief in his brown eyes betrayed him. “ _Wet_.”

“Well obvi— oh. _Oh_.”

Lily nearly knocked the table over, toe catching it’s edge as she grasped the tub’s rim for balance, cheeks burning at his “ _boyish humor”_. At least, that was what Tom had always called it. The vulgarity was not something she preferably enjoyed then, nor was it at present, and darting forward she smacked Lafayette firmly on the shoulder.

“ _Gilbert!_ — Gilbert…uh…”

“du Motier.” He sniggered helpfully. Lily feigned another whack and he shied away, laughing outright, impervious to her abashed tone.

 _“Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette Dieu aide-moi, je vais vous laisser ici!_ ”

Lafayette slid further into the tub, muffling his chuckles with a pale, freckled arm as Lily glared at him. “I meant détrempé, _détrempé_!” He gasped.

Lily scoffed, a hand on her hip. “I hope to the _Lord_ _above_ you meant that you were _soggy_.” She hissed, but there was a a wild gaiety in her eyes that had not been resurrected for nearly a year. 

“Can you wash yourself? Do you have the energy?” She asked seriously.

Lafayette snorted softly, smile fading as dark eyes drifted to focus on where cloth clung wetly to his knees where they protruded from the water. He was too tall, too gangly to fit properly in the bath. Lily would never openly admit it, but he looked every bit as ridiculous as a person could squeezed into the tiny tub.

He looked up at her with wide brown eyes. 

“Oui, I ‘ope zo.”

It was more a question than anything. A hopeful plea, soft and innocent. 

She gave him a long look, doubt concealed behind reserved features. “…I’m going to change your sheets. If you need help just call.” The uncertainty was more poignant in her voice than Lily would have preferred, but as she stepped away and threw one last hesitant glance over her shoulder Gilbert gave her a small smile, white teeth gleaming. The gesture was enough to get her out the door. 

Down the hall, make a right, to the bed. Hurry, hurry. Her steps were rapidly jaunted in her nervousness, and no sooner had she breezed into Lafayette’s bedroom than she was tearing the soiled sheets from his bed. _Quick, quick, quick_. She needed to do this— they both did. All of it. A fresh change of sheets, a deep, steadying breath, and time. Time to give Lafayette— unattended— a solitary moment to recover. But that didn’t stop her heart from threatening to beat its way out of her throat, didn’t sooth the jitters that caused her hands to quake as she smoothed clean creme-colored sheets across the mattress. In spite of Dr. Cochran’s negativity— his downright refusal— towards what the pair of them were doing, a small, nagging voice was incessant in its plaguing minstrels that this would be the final act. The thing that would kill him— murder Gilbert. The cool water would soak into his skin and freeze his bones— reawaken the raging fever. Smother him. And his blood would be on her hands. Lily trembled as she messily spread the quilt across the bed. Or worse, what if he simply grew too tired, lulled to sleep by the soothing caress of the bathwater, and _drowned?_ What if he was drowning _now_? Lily gasped, not even pausing to grab the discarded bundle of dirty sheets before she took off out the door, swerving down the hall, bursting into the bathing room in a flurry of skirts and desperate pants of breath. This was a bad idea. Dr. Cochran had been right. This was a horrendous, dreadful idea and Gilbert was—

A quiet snore.

Was…

_Sleeping?_

Lily let out a long, shaky breath, hands coming to hide her face as she sagged against the door weakly. 

The snoring stopped.

“Lily?” 

He sounded sleepy. 

Lily shook her head, covertly wiping a tear from the corner of her eye as she straightened, fixing drooping eyes with a pliant smile. Gilbert blinked blearily, looking confused, and following where his hand dangled from the tub Lily found the unused soap sitting forlornly on the floor. Moving forward she picked it up, gently tucking his arm back into the water. Kneeling down, Lily folded her arms along the tub’s rim, resting her chin upon them. 

Gilbert yawned, head heavy against the smooth porcelain lip, short copper curls knotted in tangled, chaotic coils. When he saw the soap in her hand he winced. Eyes flickering shut he groaned.  

“Zo I might ‘ave fallen asleep.” He admitted sheepishly. 

“How much did you get done?’ 

He squinted at her before his gaze rolled towards the ceiling. “Ah… _well_ … I picked zhe soap _up_.”

“And fell asleep.”

Gilbert groaned softly, but the corners of his mouth were drawn upwards in the ghost of a tiny smile. “Non. I _dropped_ eet first, then fell asleep.”

Ignoring the apprehensive yammering of her heart and the screeching urge to get him out of the bath _immediately_ — Lily allowed herself a soft chuckle. “Would you like assistance?”

“Oui… Eef it wouldn’t be too much trouble.” Gilbert murmured, eyes closing tiredly. 

“ _You’re_ too much trouble.” Lily muttered and he smiled cheekily. Snatching the rag from the floor she submerged it before roughly lathering it with soap. She started at his neck, gently working the cloth around his shoulders and down his chest, stopping only once when Gilbert recoiled away from the cloth at his stomach. 

“Eet _tickles_ ,” he protested over Lily’s giggles. He sniffed. “I am going to smell like a flow _arr_ when _mon Général_ next veesits me.”

“There are worse things to smell like, Gilbert.” Lily hummed.

“Zhat ees true,” he mused. “I could smell like Captain ‘amilton after ‘e ‘as been writing for two days straight.”

Lily paused, fixing him with an incredulous stare. Gilbert shrugged. 

“Writing ees ‘ard work, Lily.”

“Uh huh.” She’d reached his calves, and through the cloudy water Lily could see the pucker of healed flesh tattooed in a perfect circle against his skin. She ran the cloth over it tentatively, glancing quickly at Gilbert for a reaction. 

“You a _rre_ n’t going to ‘urt me. Eet ‘as been ‘ealed for a while.” He said, eyes still closed. Lily nodded— though he couldn’t see it— and continued. She didn’t speak, didn’t bring up whatever battle had wounded him so— if it had indeed been a battle. Her lips pressed firmly together. She didn’t want to stay on the subject— refused to think about him in a halo of screams and gunfire, clutching his calf, writhing in pain. The thought squeezed at her heart; made her nauseous. 

It wasn’t until Lily had moved to wash Lafayette’s hair that she opened her mouth, directing him to slide downwards, his height proving more problematic that she’d initially perceived. With his knees bunched and the water lapping at his shoulders, Gilbert lay awkwardly, a faint roseate tint coloring his cheeks as she worked the soap through his knotted curls. 

“Theese ees my penance for letting eet get zo long.” He assured Lily after she’d pulled a particularly stubborn tangle that had wrenched a small gasp of pain from him. She ran her fingers through his hair, working the soap into a lather, and Gilbert let out a moan, closing his eyes. His blush grew. Lily laughed. 

“Does that feel good?”

“Much better than zhe stuffy wig.” He murmured.

“Don’t you ever get tired of wearing it?”

Gilbert opened an eye to squint up at her for a moment. “I ‘onestly do not notice eet

much anymore. Alzo eet ees better than my real ‘air.”

Lily faltered for half a moment. “And why is that?” She asked, forcing the nonchalance into her tone. 

Lafayette shrugged, his motions sluggish and drained. “Eet’s colorr… il est trop rouge.”

“Who told you _that?_ ” Lily sounded offended, and she was. She quite liked the brilliant copper of his hair— it was beautiful. 

Gilbert chuckled. “Zhe court.” he whispered. 

Her father had told her of Versailles’ royal congregation— had even had the _lucky_ chance to travel there once, before he and her mother had emigrated. A gaggle of ridiculously dressed, vain geese with false agendas and lips that waggled around gossip with every breath. _Hypocrites_. Lily thought. _The lot of them._  

They lapsed into silence, Lily humming to herself as she ran her fingers through dark red hair worked free from its gnarls and coils, pausing once to wick away a droplet of soap that clung to the hard curve of Gilbert’s cheekbone. He made no sound, eyes closed, weary features immobile. He had fallen asleep again, Lily was sure of it. Honestly she was surprised he had even lasted this long.  

But she had to rinse his hair, and that required at least some level of awareness— preferably a conscious one— from the man. 

“Gilbert?” Lily whispered, holding his head out of the water with one hand while the other shook his shoulder gently. “Are you asleep?”

He let out a low groan. “ _Oui_.”

“Monsieur Marquis, are you lying to me?”

“ _Non_.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Do you need to go lay down?”

Lafayette’s brow furrowed as he fought to force his eyes open somewhat. Blinking up at her sleepily he swallowed. 

“Before… je… actually fall asleep, Lily, oui.”

The notion sent a tendril of panic into the pit of her stomach. She would never be able to get him out and then— oh God _then_ —

“O-okay Gilbert, you need to stay awake for me for five more minutes.”

Lafayette groaned. “But zhat is zo _long_.”

“ _Cinq minutes!_ ”

 

 

The door slammed solidly shut behind Cochran as he stormed out, leaving Lily and Lafayette alone in the laconism aftermath of his incredulous outburst. To say that he’d been angry when he’d discovered a newly bathed Marquis sitting up in bed was— in Lily’s mind at least— a flagrant understatement. He’d towered over Lily, gentle eyes and calm voice contorted into a terrifying visage of fury that’d had Lily pushed onto her tiptoes as she snapped back angry retorts, Gilbert all the while struggling to push himself up in bed, croaking voice and wobbly arms ignored as he fought to raise his objections above their shouting.

“Eet was my idea!” He’d protested, thrusting the lie into the breach of their argument. Cochran had whirled, lips pinched tightly together, eyes hard and brow creased severely, before advancing on Gilbert. 

“Monsieur Marquis, do you have _any idea_ the severity of the repercussions such a decision entails?”

“Lily explained them all in great detail, _oui_. But I could not go anoth _err_ minute smelling like a _cadavre_.”

The doctor’s hands had balled into fists, veins popping on his brow, and before anything more could be said he was gone, door vibrating in its hinges at his agitated exit.

Lily turned around slowly. 

“Sooo that went well.”

“‘E ees going to come back and kill us.”

Lily snorted. “Well until then get some rest. I’ll be back with your lunch in an hour or so.”

Gilbert frowned. She didn’t notice.

The hour came and went, and reentering the quiet room Lily nearly dropped the plate of food at the distraught look on Lafayette’s face. 

“Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas? Is it a headache?!”

Gilbert shook his head, teeth grit. It was a lie. His jaw was clenched, hands fisting his sheets tightly. A horribly obvious lie. Lily nearly threw the plate down in her hurry to be rid of it, crossing to the bedside and sitting beside him. 

“Did you manage to get any sleep?”

“ _Non_.” Gilbert bit out. 

“But you were so tired…” Lily mumbled, more to herself than the man at her elbow. 

“I…” He paused, eyes closing, and swallowed hard. “… _refuse_. To sleep. Pas jusqu'à ce que je vois Washington.”

Lily balked in disbelief. “No, no that’s ridiculous. I will wake you when and _if_ he comes, _je promets_ Gilbert—”

“ _Vous ne me réveillez pas la dernière fois._ ” Gilbert bit out harshly, and the tension in his forearm whispered to Lily that the bitting ache of his head was partly to blame for the bitterness in his voice.  

“This isn’t— this is different. The circumstances are _different_ — you’re more aware of yourself. More _strength_. Before you could barely hold a conversation past a few minutes.”

Lafayette glared stubbornly at her through his pain. Lily looked at him hard. The agony was fading from his brown eyes, and slowly the tightness drooped from his shoulders. After a minute he let out a long breath.

“Is it gone?” She asked tentatively. 

“Non… But eet ees a little better.”

Lily leaned over, snatching Lafayette’s lunch from the night stand. “Do you think you could eat?”

Gilbert eyed her, putting up a valiant effort of at nibbling a piece of bread before tossing it down abruptly. At first Lily thought it was the headache, resurfacing in a ruthless wave of nauseating torment, but when she caught Lafayette’s eye he held her gaze, and in the span of a second something wormed its way into place and she understood. 

“So you’re just going to _sit_ there and- and _starve_ to death until—”

“I cannot bring myself to focus on anything past seeing _mon Général_. I am _frustrated_ , Lily. Eet ‘as almost been a month. Je refuse d'être évité.”

Lily gaped at him, at a loss for words. Gilbert stared right back, jaw set rigidly, intractable stubbornness present in the intensity of his narrowed gaze. Finally, words found her. 

“Ceci est le plus _ridicule_ — I don’t— You’re acting like a child, Gilbert. C'est ridicule! You do realize that your inability to eat is the culprit _behind_ your weakness. Don’t you understand? You’re too malnourished to not—”  

“ _I am tired of others telling me what is best for myself!_ ” Lafayette snapped back. Lily recoiled slightly at the ice in his tone, though the firmness did not leave her eyes. “Ceci est ma décision, pas le vôtre.”

“Well it is a _foolish_ one.” Lily hissed. 

“I do not care.”

“Well you _should_ care!”

Lafayette ground his hands into the blankets fiercely, bitter indignation curling his lip. “You _knew_ I wished to see His Excellency and yet time after time you let him turn away! And for what? Mon _sommeil_?!” 

“You needed your rest!” Lily cried, cheeks hot. Somewhere in the house there was shuffling as a door slammed shut. “Not two weeks ago you nearly died, and now it seems you wish to taunt death a second time? I think—”

“JE M’EN FOUSE DE CE QUE TU PENSES!” Lafayette yelled hoarsely, a hand rising to clutch at his temple. “YOU A _RRE_ NOT MYSELF! 

“DON’T BE SO ARROGANT TO FORGET THAT OTHERS CARE ABOUT YOU!” Lily shouted. 

“YOU A _RRE_ NOT MY WIFE! _NOT MY SISTER!_ PAS QUE MA FAMILLE! _You do not get to decide for me!_ ” Lafayette snarled coldly. _“MON_ CORPS. _MA_ VIE!” 

Lily blanched, flinching back as if she’d been slapped. Immediately Gilbert paled, eyes blown wide in horror and pain, mouth working mutely. Rage coursed through her, a wildfire, a white hot blaze, irrepressible. And yet the viciousness of his words stifled it all the same, overwhelming her in a surge of smothering grief and stinging, wet eyes. Crushed, she did not see the ghost white of Gilbert’s face, the way his fingers tangled hopelessly in the hair near his temple— his labored breath. He made to reach for her, looking aghast. 

“ _Lily I—_ ”

Channeling her hurt and rage into one final, half hearted glare Lily spun— quickly, before he could see her tears begin to fall—

“—Lily _WAIT!_ —”

— and found herself smacking into the pristinely uniformed chest of George Washington himself. She didn’t pause, didn’t draw back and curtsey, didn’t do anything but thrust the plate of barely touched food into the baffled man’s hands.

“Oh _lovely_! Here, _you_ make him eat. _J'ai fini avec cet homme!_ ” She shrieked, voice wavering dangerously, before half-stalking, half-running to the door and slamming it shut so hard it wobbled in its frame.

Gilbert groaned, head falling into his hands as the throbbing in his temple pounded ever the harder, made all the more torturous thanks to their combined shouting. His stomach flipped in mortification at the words that had escaped him. Awful— how could he say such callous things to her? Awful. _Awful_. In the darkness of fingers pressed firmly over eyelids he could still see the injured way she’d stumbled back, the hurt in her eyes. His words vibrated in his ears, relentlessly wicked, and all the while his head poundedpounded _pounded_. Gilbert pressed the pads of his fingers deep, nails cutting into his temple as he bit his lip harshly, fighting back a whimper. 

 _Merde_. 

Cruel. How heartlessly _cruel_ he was. A sinister, gut wrenching thought pulsated violently, lancing through his mind, and Gilbert bit back a moan of recognition. Lily had left so fast, so hurriedly— she’d turned before he could see her _tears_. She hated when people saw her cry— she’d told him so, an offhanded comment one fuzzy morning, but he’d remembered nonetheless. It felt like his skull was being crushed, a bloody black and blue battering as he clutched his hair ever the tighter. He deserved this— the sickening, merciless pressing throb against his temples. 

A hand, firm and warm on his shoulder nearly sent Lafayette flinching off the bed in his shock, and peeking through the gaps between his fingers he froze, stunned. Amidst the violent spasms of his temple and the disgust and misery threatening to overwhelm him he had forgotten who had replaced Lily for his company. 

Washington gazed down at him, concern bending his brow to a furrow. There was alarm in the man’s eyes, a subtle, wide-eyed anxiety that Gilbert felt certain was a reflection of his own stupefied gawk. He opened his mouth only to shut it twice as quickly, and together they lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. He couldn’t remember the last conversation they’d had together, couldn’t remember anything past how to hold his breath, limbs frozen to a ruthless stillness. Washington’s eyes roved, sweeping from Gilbert’s knees bunched beneath the sheets to the inward curve of his shoulders, the lax way his hands fell into his lap. The divots left by stinging, unrelenting nails against his scalp. His hair a halo of corkscrewing copper curls, detangled and gleaming from his bath the previous day. 

Gilbert swallowed. The heat was on the march, slipping apostate up his neck to spread red across his cheeks. All too suddenly he was realizing just how _déshabillé_ he really was, in only an undershirt and caleçons. No uniform, no sash. And _Dieu au-dessus_ , where was his wig? Gilbert didn’t know what to do— to _say._ So deep did he find himself in his mortification that he could not even bring himself to tear his gaze from his General’s. 

Suddenly Washington was speaking, lips a blur, voice a garble of words that beat futilely against Lafayette’s ears. His words were too quick, Gilbert himself too bewildered, and blinking he could only continue to stare, eyes trekking over stone-gray eyes, the familiar curves and angles and wrinkles of a face he’d not seen in what felt like an eternity. Washington said something again, leaning forward slightly to repeat himself, and after a moment Lafayette realized that he was calling his name. Blinking rapidly he pulled back, overwhelmed. Washington’s hand remained on his shoulder, the concern in his gaze thickening, and forcing himself to swallow thickly Gilbert spoke. 

“Good afte _rr_ noon your Excellence _ey._ Please excuse, je— _I_ — am un peu diso _rr_ iented. I did not catch what you said.” Gilbert felt himself redden even more, embarrassed at how heavy his accent was. But he couldn’t help it, he was far too flustered, much too jittery— normally Lily was very good at deciphering what he said, as were Hamilton and Laurens, but Washington was none of them— had not heard such broken, mangled English from Gilbert since his first few tentative months in the colonies. Lafayette had seen to that. Only one other person knew of his nightly speech practices, and Gilbert doubted Hamilton would spread the secret past whispering it into John’s ear for an endearing chuckle or two. 

Washington cocked his head and, after a moment, flashed a small smile. Such a rare sight captivated Lafayette, thrusting him back into speechless ogling. 

“I… was merely inquiring if I had come at a bad time...?” He said awkwardly, voice gruffer than usual. Gilbert gaped at him as Washington cleared his throat— plate of food still held unsurely in his large hands— at a loss for words.  “Is your nurse always such a spitfire?” He continued, the thought out of his mouth so fast that Lafayette had to take a moment to piece George’s words together, blinking rapidly. Shuffling back and forth, Washington’s eyes darted restlessly around the room. 

“I think… before we discuss anything further, we see about this food. Hm?” He said hopefully, raising the plate in his hand. 

Fighting to keep the tiny quirk from raising the corner of his mouth, Gilbert nodded.

“Oui, Your Excellency.” 

Washington stooped, plate held aloft for Gilbert to take. Panicked gaze flitting from the plate to his Commander, Lafayette blanched. Forcing his arm to work, he wrapped weak fingers around the heavy ceramic

and promptly dropped it. Or rather, he would have, if Washington had not caught it at the last second, saving the platter’s contents from tumbling across his bed and onto the floor. Face aflame, Gilbert ducked his head, mortified, eyes trained on his knees as embarrassment rendered him mute. There was the familiar creaking complaint of wood as George sat in the chair at his bedside, and raising his head tentatively Gilbert found Washington looking at him with tender eyes.

“Perhaps I could be of some assistance? Unless you wish me to fetch your lovely nurse—?”  
“ _Non_.” Gilbert winced, a hand reflexively grabbing at his throbbing temple. The pain had dulled, but only somewhat. “Non, Your Excellency, I can do it. I just—”

“Nearly dropped a plate of food all over yourself, yes.”

Gilbert blushed, eyes dropping to peer at Washington abashedly from beneath long lashes. A flicker of motion caught his eye and looking up Lafayette could only stare dumbly at the small chunk of bread in Washington’s outstretched hand.

“Please Lafayette, let me help?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So initially, this chapter was supposed to contain the scene with Washington and Lafayette, but seeing as it was _already_ over 6,000 words, I figured I'd just halve them and dedicate chapter eight entirely to the DadWash reunion. Bc Cur Non? 
> 
> Anyways guys, thanks so much for your comments and suggestions, I hope you enjoyed the chapter :) The next one will be out soonish. Lemme know what you thought, if you have any suggestions, or if you just feel like screaming in all caps in the comment section. I'm all ears!


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